PN 

I &4I 



Class 



P 



Book. 



I 

I 




LONGINIIS ON THE SUBLIME. 



A NEW TRANSLATION, CHIEFLY ACCORDING TO THE 
IMPROVED EDITION OF 



DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF ENGLISH READERS IN GENERAL. 



BY A MASTER OF ARTS OF THE UXR1ERSITY OF OXFORD. 



Thee, great Long-inns ! aU the Nine inspire. 
And fill their Critic with a poet's fire ; 
An ardent jiidge, v/ho, zealous in his trust, 
With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just ; 
Whose own example strengthens all his laws, 
And is himself the great sublime he di^aws. 



126, NEWGATE^STREET; 
ALSO 37, NEW^STREET, BIRMINGHA^I ; AND 158, BRIGGATE, 
LEEDS, 



WEISKE, 



Pope's Essa^ on Criticisnu Part Hi, 




S. COR^'ISH AXD CO. 



JOHN BLACKBURN, 
PRINTER, 
HATTCN GARDEN. 



PREFACE. 



The translation of Longinns on the Sublime, now 
offered to the public, is intended not only for the 
use of the English reader; but it is hoped, at the 
same time, that it will also serve the pui^poses of 
the student in Greek literatui-e, and assist him in 
mastering the difficulties of the original. Care 
has therefore been taken, that both the text, and the 
illustrations, should present no impediments to such 
as are unacquainted with the learned languages. The 
examples quoted from the classics will be always found 
accompanied by corresponding examples from standard 
authors in our o^yn tongue. No apology will perhaps 
be required for an endeavour to set before the British 
pubhe faithfully and intelligibly, a treatise v. hich has 
commanded the admiration of the best judges, and 
stood the test of the severest criticism in every age of 



ii PREFACE. 

the worlds from the period of its pubhcation to the 
present hour ; and of which it may be safely predicted^ 
that it will continue to form the standard of sound 
judgment and taste, till sublimity of sentiment, and 
harmony of language, shall loose their hold upon the 
human heart. 

Tlie age we live in is peculiarly a reading age ; the 
desire of oratorical eminence is confined to no class, 
the materials of study and information accessible to 
every order of society. In this state of things it must 
surely be desirable that every possible effort should be 
made to form the public taste, to inculcate the prin- 
ciples of correct judgment, and point out those models 
of fine writing, which may be studied and imitated with 
advantage. The Sublime of Longinus, fairly rendered, 
with the examples and illustrations judiciously selected 
by Dr. Smith from the three richest stores of all that 
is sublime and beautiful in our own language — the 
Holy Scriptures, Shakspere and Milton, is, perhaps, 
the most compendious and instructive manual that a 
student could adopt. The master-critic has in this 
treatise, canvassed his subject in a spirit of practical 
philosophy ; he has not only analysed the true sublime 
into its primary elements, assigning to nature and art 
their respective provinces in consummating the character 



PREFACE. iii 

of the perfect orator ; but has traced the occasions of 
failure to their souixe. Not content with illuminating 
the path by which alone ^^the heights sublime of 
eloquence^^ can be sui-mounted; he has carefully erected 
beacons to warn us of the dangers by which it is beset. 
But it would be supei^uous to enter into a minute 
description of the contents of that which is so brief 
and comprehensive in itself; or to say more in com- 
mendation of a performance^ whose praises are well 
known to have exhausted the eloquence of the master- 
spirits of eveiy age. To adduce testimonies from modern 
authors^ would be to fill a volume ^Yiih extracts from 
the works of Dryden^ Pope^ J ohnson^ Gibbon^ Blair^ &e. 

All who are able to appreciate the worth of this 
" Golden Treatise/^ for such is the title universally 
accorded to it^ must for ever deplore the uncertainty in 
which the personal history of its author is enveloped. 
The more probable and generally received opinion is, 
that he was an iVthenian and a collateral descendant of 
the eloquent and philosophic Plutarch. After devoting 
his earlier years to travel^ he is said to have settled at 



* The illustrations and examples of Dean Smith have been retained, 
with very few exceptions and adcUtions ; but it has been found neces- 
sary, from one cause or other, to alter his trail slation in almost every 
line. 



iv PREFACE* 

Athens^ in wliose sweet recess^^ lie lived delighted and 
admired by all^ till tlie fame of liis virtues and liis talents 
commended him to the notice of Zenobia^ queen of 
Palmyra^ herself a miracle of courage^ chastity, and 
beauty. He became the tutor of her sons ; and in the 
capacity of secretary assisted the counsels of his royal 
mistress, and shared her eventful fortunes in either 
extreme. 

A'\Tien the Emperor Aurelian invested the city of Pal- 
myi'a, the last retreat of the twice-defeated Queen of 
the East, he experienced the most gallant resistance 
from the Palmyi^enians ; and, despairing of success by 
force of arms, he summoned Zenobia to surrender in 
the follomng terms : 

AURELIAN, EMPEROR OF THE ROMAN AVORLD, AND 
RECOVERER OF THE EAST, TO ZENOBIA AND 
HER ADHERENTS. 

Why am I forced to commxand what you ought to 
have done voluntarily. I charge you to smTender, and 
thereby avoid the certain penalty of death, which other- 
wise attends you. You, Zenobia, shall spend the re- 
mainder of your life where I, by the advice of the most 
honorable senate, shall think proper to place you. Your 
jew^els, your silver, your gold, your finest apparel, your 
horses, and yom' camels, you shall resign to the disposal 



PREFACE. V 

of the Romans^ in order to preserve tlie Palmyrenians 
from being divested of all their former privileges/^ 
The spiiited reply is from the pen of Longinus. 

ZENOBIA, QUEEN OF THE EAST, TO THE EMPEROR 
AURELIAN. 

Never was such an unreasonable demand proposed^ 
or such rigorous terms offered^ by any but yom^self. 
Remember^ Aurelian^ that in war^ whatever is done^ 
should be done by valour. You imperiously command 
me to suiTcnder; but can you forget that Cleopatra 
chose rather to die with the title of Queen^ than to live 
in any inferior dignity ? We expects succoui' fi'om Per- 
sia ; the Saracens are arming in om* cause ; even the 
Syrian banditti have already defeated your army. Judge 
what you are to expect from a conjunction of these forces. 
You shall be compelled to abate that pride^, with which^ 
as if you were absolute lord of the universe^ you com- 
mand me to become yom^ captive."'^ 

Stung T\^th indignation and shame^ Aurelian redoubled 
his efforts^ intercepted the succours from Persia^ and 
subdued or seduced the Saracen and xVrmenian forces,, 
till at length the PalmjTenians^ worn out by continual 
assaults from without and by famine within their walls^ 
opened their gates to receive the \dctor. Zenobia 
and Longinus fled^ but were overtaken by Aurelian^s 



vi PREFACE. 

horse. The captive queen would not; or could not 
conceal the part Longinus had acted,, and he fell a 
sacrifice to the enraged conqueror. The manner in which 
he met his fate was every way worthy of his life and 
character. That genuine greatness of soul^ so vividly 
reflected in his works^ and which, in his view, formed 
the foundation of whatsoever is truly sublime in writing, 
forsook him not in the hour of his last necessity, but 
sent forth echoes'^ that will resound eternally. With- 
out a complaint or murmur, he calmly followed the 
executioner, sorrowing indeed for his unhappy mistress, 
but consoling his afflicted friends, and welcoming death 
as a deliverance from the thraldrom of the body. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



SECTION I. 

You knoTT, my dear Terentianus, that when we perused 
Cecilius's pamphlet on the Sublime together, we thought 
it below a subject of that magnitude, that it was entirely 
defective in its principal branches, and that its advantage 
to readers, which ought to be the principal aim of every 
writer, would prove very small. Besides, though in every 
scientific treatise two points are required ; the first, that 
the nature of the subject treated of be fully explained ; 
the second I mean in order of writing, since in import- 
ance it is superior, that directions be given, how and by 
what methods the object sought may be attained : yet 
CeciHus, who brings ten thousand instances to show what 
the subhme is, as if his readers were ignorant of the 
matter, has some how or other omitted, as unnecessary, 
the discipHne that might enable us to raise our natural 
genius in any degree whatever to this subhme. But, per- 
haps, this witer is not so much to be blamed for his omis- 
sions, as commended for the mere conception of the idea, 
and his earnest endeavours. You indeed have exhorted me 
also by all means to set down my thoughts on this subhme, 
on your own account ; let us then consider whether any 
thing can be drawn from my private studies, for the ser- 
vice of those who write for the world, or speak in public. 

But you, my friend, will give me your judgment on what- 
ever I advance, with that exactness, which is clue to truth, 
and that sincerity which is habitual to you. For well 
did the sage answer the question, In w^hat do we most 
resemble the gods?" when he replied, *^In doing good 
and speaking truth." But since I write, my friend, to you, 
who are thoroughly versed in pohte learning, there will be 
little occasion to use many previous words in proving, that 
the sublime is a certain excellence and perfection of lan- 
guage, and that the greatest writers, both in verse and 

B 



2 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



prose, have by this alone obtained the prize of glory, and 
clothed their renown with immortahty. For the grand 
not only persuades, but even transports an audience. And 
the adnurable by its astounding effect is always more effica- 
cious than that which merely persuades or deUghts. For 
in most cases, it rests wholly with ourselves either to 
resist or yield to persuasion. But. these, by the application 
of a sovereign power, and uTesistible might, get the ascen- 
dency over every hearer. Again, dexterity of invention, 
and good order and economy in composition, are not to be 
discerned from one or two passages, and sometimes hardly 
fi'om the whole texture of a discourse ; but the subhme, 
when uttered in due season, with the lightning's force 
scatters all before it in an instant, and shows at once the 
might of genius in a single stroke. For in these, and 
truths hke these, experimentally conversant as you are 
with them, you might, my dearest Terentianus, be the in- 
structor of others yourself. 



SECTION TI. 

But we ought not to advance, before we clear the point, 
whether or not there be any art in the sublime, or the 
pathetic. For some are of opinion, that they are altogether 
mistaken, who would reduce it to the rules of art. The 
subhme (say they) is born with us, and is not to be 
learned by precept. The only art to reach it, is, to have 
the power from nature. And, as they reason, the produc- 
tions of nature are deteriorated and altogether enervated 
by the emaciating effects of artistical rules. 

But I maintain, that the contrary might easily appear, 
would they only reflect that — though"^ nature for the most 

* These observations of Longinus, and the following lines of Mr. 
Pope, are a very proper illustration for one another : 

First follow nature, and your judgment frame 
By her just standard, which is still the same : 
Unerring nature, still diyinely bright, 
One clear, unchanged, and universal Mght, 
Life, force, and beauty must to all impart, 
At once the source, and end, and test of art. 
Art from that fund each just supply provides, 
Works without show, and n^dthout pomp presides : 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



3 



part challenges a sovereign and uncontrollable power in the 
pathetic and sublime, yet she is not altogether lawless, but 
dehghts in a proper regulation. That again- — though she 
is in every case the foundation, and the priman^ source, 
and original pattern of production, yet method is able to 
determine and adjust the measures, and discriminate the 
season in each thing, and moreover to teach the cultivation 
and use of them with the greatest degree of certainty. And 
further, that flights of grandeur are more exposed to 
danger, when abandoned to themselves, without the aid of 
science, and having nothing to give them steadiness or 
equipoise, but left to blind impulse alone and untutored 
daring. For they often indeed want the spur, but they 
stand as frequently in need of the curb. 

Demosthenes somewhere judiciously observes, That in 
common Hfe success is the greatest good ; that the next, 
and no less important, is conduct, without which the other 
must be unavoidably of short continuance." IS^ow the 
same may be asserted of composition, where nature sup- 
plies the place of success, and art the place of conduct. 

But, there is one consideration which deserves particular 
attention. For the very fact that there is anything in elo- 
quence, which depends upon nature alone, could not be 
known without that Hght which we receive from art. If, 
therefore, as I said before, he who censures them that 
pursue such useful hterary labours as this in which I am 
now engaged, would give due attention to these reflections, 
I believe he would no longer think an investigation of this 
nature superfluous or useless. 



In some fair body thus the secret soul 

AVith spuits feeds, with ^igoui' fills the whole ; 

Each motion guides, and eveiy nen'e sustains, 

Itself unseen, but in th' effect remains. 

There are, whom Heav'n has bless'd vrith store of wit, 

Yet ^Yant as much again to manage it ; 

For wit and judgment ever are at strife. 

Though meant each other's aid, hke man and wife. 

'Tis more to guide, than spur the Muse's steed, 

Restrain his fm^', than provoke his speed ; 

The winged courser, hke a generous horse. 

Shows most true mettle when you check his course. 

Essai/ on Oritici&m. 



4 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



SECTION III. 

Let them the chimney's flashing flames repel. 
Could but these eyes one lurking wretch arrest, 
I'd whirl aloft one streaming curl of flame, 
And into embers turn his crackling dome. 
But now a generous song I have not sounded.* 

Streaming curls of flame, spewing against heaven, and 
making B4)reas a piper, f with such-hke expressions, are 
not tragical, but super-tragical. For the diction is coarse 
and turbid, and the images jumbled and tumultuous, and 
therefore cannot possibly adorn or raise the subject ; and 
whenever carefully examined in the light, their show of 
being terrible gradually disappears, and they become con- 
temptible and ridiculous. Tragedy will indeed by its nature 
admit of some pomp ; and grandiloquence, yet even in 
tragedy it is unpardonable to swell immoderately ; much 
less allowable must it therefore be in prose-writing, or those 
works which are founded in truth. Upon this account some 
expressions of Gorgias the LeontineJ are ridiculed, who 

* Here is a great defect ; but it is evident that the author is treating 
of those imperfections which are opposite to the true sublime, and 
among those, of extravagant swelling or bombast, an example of which 
he produces from some old tragic poet, none of whose hnes, except 
these here quoted, and some expressions below, remain at present. 

t Making Boreas a piper." Shakspeare has fallen into the same 
kind of bombast : 

The southern wind 
Doth play the trumpet to his purposes. 

First Part of Henry IV. 
X Gorgias the Leontine, or of Leontium, was a Sicilian rhetorician, 
and father of the Sophists. He was in such universal esteem through- 
out Greece, that a statue w^as erected to his honour in the temple of 
Apollo at Delphi, of solid gold, though the custom had been only to 
gild them. His styling Xerxes the Persian Jupiter, it is thought, may 
be defended from the custom of the Persians to salute their monarch 
by that high title. Calling vultures hving sepulchres, has been more 
severely censm-ed by Hermogenes than Longinus. The authors of such 
quaint expressions (as he says) deserve themselves to be buried in such 
tombs. It is certain that writers of great reputation have used allu- 
sions of the same nature. Dr. Pearce has produced instances from 
Ovid, and even from Cicero ; and obsei-\^ed further, that Gregory 
Nazianzen has styled those wild beasts that devour men, running sepul- 
chres. However, at best they are but conceits, with which httle wits 
in all ages will be delighted, the great may accidentally sMp into, and 
such as men of true judgment may overlook, but will hardly commend. 



LOXGIXUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



6 



styles Xerxes the Persian Jupiter^ and calls vultures living 
sepulchres. Some expressions of Callistlienes* deserve the 
same treatment, for they are not subhme, but inflated. 
And Chtarchusf comes under this censure still more, vfho 
is Hke a tree all bark, and blo^s, as Sophocles expresses it, 

on small pipes, but without a mouthpiece." 

Amphicrates, J Hegesias,§ and ]Matris,|| may all be taxed 
with the same imperfections. For often, when, in their 
own opinion, they are all divine, what they imagine to be 
inspiration, proves empty froth. ^ 

Upon the whole bombast seems to be amongst those faults 
which are most difficult to be avoided. For all who are 
naturally inchned to aim at grandem', in shunning the 



* Callistlienes succeeded Aristotle in the tuition of Alexander the 
Great, and TSTote a history of the affairs of Greece. 

t Chtarchus wote an account of the exploits of Alexander the 
Great, having attended him in Ms expeditions. Demetrius Phalereiis, 
in his treatise on Elocution, has censm-ed his s^^ elUng description of a 
wasp. " It feeds (says he) upon the mountains, and flies into hollow 
oaks.'' It seems as if he was speaking of a vriLd bull, or the boar of 
Erymanthus, and not of such a pitiful creature as a wasp. And for this 
reason, says Demetrius, the description is cold and disagreeable. 

X Amphicrates was an Athenian orator. Being banished to Seleucia, 
and requested to set up a school there, he replied, with arrogance and 
disdain, that The dish was not large enough for dolpliins." — 
Dr, Pearce. 

§ Hegesias was a Magnesian. Cicero, in liis Orator, c. 226, says 
humourously of him, " He is faulty no less in Ms thoughts than his 
expressions, so that no one who lias any knowledge of Mm need ever 
be at a loss for a man to call impertinent.^^ One of his frigid expres- 
sions LS still remaining. Alexander was l3orn the same night that the 
temple of Diana at Ephesus, the finest edifice in the world, was by a 
terrible fire reduced to ashes. Hegesias, in * paneg>Tical declamation 
on Alexander the Great, attempted thus to turn that accident to his 
honour : " No wonder (said he) that Diana's temple was consumed by 
so terrible a conflagration : the goddess was so taken up in assisting at 
OlintMa's dehvery of Alexander, that she had no leisure to extinguish 
the flames which were destroying her temple." " The coldness of this 
expression (says Plutarch in Alex.) is so excessively great, that it seems 
sufficient of itself to have extinguished the fire of the temple." 

I wonder Plutarch, who has given so little quarter to Hegesias^ has 
Mmself escaped censm-e, till Dr. Pearce took cognizance of him. Dui- 
ness (says he) is sometimes infectious ; for wMle Plutarch is censuring 
Hegesias, he falls into Ms very character." 

II Who Matris was, I cannot find, but commentators observe from 
Athenaeus, that he wTote in prose an encomium upon Hercules. 

% Vid. Cic. 1. 4. Rhet. 

B 2 



6 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



censure of impotence and phlegm, are some how or other 
hurried into this fault, being persuaded that 

In great attempts 'tis glorious ev'n to fall. 

But tumours in writing, like those in the human body, are 
certain disorders. Empty and veiled over with superficial 
cri'eatness, they only delude, and work effects contrary to 
those for which they were designed. Nothing," accord- 
ing to the old saying, ''is drier than a person (fistempered 
with a dropsy." 

Now this swoln and puffed-up style endeavours to go 
beyond the true sublime, whereas puerihties are directly 
opposite to it. They are altogether low and grovelling, 
meanly and faintly expressed, and in a word are the most 
ungenerous and unpardonable errors that an author can be 
guilty of. 

But what do we mean by a puerihty ? Why, it is cer- 
tainly no more than a school-boy's thought, which, by too 
eager a pursuit of elegance, becomes dry and insipid. And 
those persons commonly fail in this particular, who, by an 
ill-managed zeal for that which is out of the common way, 
high wrought, and above all, sweet, run into trumpery and 
affected expressions. 

To these may be added a third sort of imperfection in 
the pathetic, which Theodorus has named the parenthyrse, 
or an ill-tim^ed emotion. It is an attempt to work upon 
the passions, where there is no need of pathos ; or some 
excess, where moderation is requisite. For some authors, 
as if from the elfects of intoxication, fall into passionate 
expressions, which bear no relation at all to their subject, 
but are whims of their own, or borrowed from the schools. 
The consequence is, as might be expected, that they meet 
with nothing but contempt and derision from their un- 
moved audience ; transported themselves, whilst their 
hearers are calm, and unexcited. But I have reserved the 
pathetic for another place. 



SECTION IV. 

TiM^us abounds very much in the frigid, the other ^dce 
I mentioned ; a writer, it is true, sufficiently skilled in other 
points, and who sometimes reaches the genuine sublime. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 7 

He was also a person of great erudition, and fertility of 
thought, but extreme to mark the imperfections of others, 
and utterly bhnd to his own ; though a fond desii^e of new 
thoughts and uncommon turns has often plunged him into 
shameful puerihties. The truth of these assertions I shall 
confirm by one or two instances alone, since Cecilius has 
anticipated me in most of them. 

When he commends Alexander the Great, he tells us, 
'^that he conquered all Asia in fewer years than it took 
Isocrates to compose his panegyric on the Persian war.^' 
A wonderful parallel indeed, between the conqueror of the 
world, and a professor of rhetoric ! By your method of com- 
putation Timseus, the Lacedemonians fall vastly short of 
Isocrates, in prowess ; for they spent thirty years in the 
siege of Messene, he only ten in writing that panegyric ! 

But how does he inveigh against those Athenians who 
were made prisoners after the defeat in Sicily ! Guilty 
(says he) of sacrilege against Hermes, and having defaced 
his images, they now suffered a just retribution, and chiefly 
at the hands of Hermocrates the son of Hermon, who was 
paternally descended from the injured deity." Really, my 
Terentianus, I am surprised that he has not witten of 
Dionysius the t\Tant ; "that, for his heinous impiety 
towards Jupiter (or Dia) and Hercules (Heraclea,) he was 
dethroned by Dion and Herachdes." 

Why should I dwell any longer upon Timseus, when even 
the Yery heroes of good writing, Xenophon and Plato, 
though educated in the school of Socrates, sometimes for- 
get themselves, and transgress through an affectation of 
such pretty flourishes? The former, in his PoHty of the 
Lacedemonians, speaks thus : They observe an uninter- 
rupted silence, and keep their eyes as fixed and unmoved, 
as if they were so many statues of stone or brass. You 
might with reason think them more modest"^ than the 
virgins in their eyes.^'f Amphicrates might, perhaps, be 
allowed to use the term modest virgins for the pupils of 



* The reading of this passage of Xenophon in the best editions, 
particularly that at Paris by H. Stephens, removes the objection of 
Longinus, and restores a sense worthy of Xenophon : " Yon would 
think them more modest in their whole behaviour, than virgins in the 
bridal chamber." 

t The word Kop-q. signifying both a virgin and the pupil of the eye, 
has given occasion to these cold insipid turns. 



8 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



the eyes ; but what an indecency is it in the great Xeno- 
phon ? And what a strange persuasion, that the pupils of 
the eyes should be in general the seats of modesty, when 
impudence is no where more visible than in the eyes of 
some ? Homer, for instance, says of an impertinent person, 

Drunkard ! thou dog in eye !* 

Timseus, as if he had found a booty, could not pass by 
even this insipid turn of Xenophon without appropriating it. 
Accordingly he speaks thus of Agathocles : He ravished 
his own cousin, though married to another person, and on 
the very day when she was first seen by her husband 
without a veil ;f a crime, of which none but he who had 
prostitutes, not virgins, in his eyes, could be guilty." 
Neither is the otherwise divine Plato to be acquitted of this 
failing, when he says, for instance ; " After they are 
written, they deposit in the temples these cypress memo- 
rials," meaning the tables of the laws. J And in another 
passage ; As to the walls, Megillus, I would join in the 
opinion of Sparta, to let them sleep supine on the earth, 
and not to rouse them up."§ Neither does an expression 
of Herodotus fall short of it, vfhen he calls beautiful 
women, '^the pains of the eye."|| Though this indeed may 
admit of some excuse, since in his history it is spoken by 
drunken barbarians. But it is not good to incur the ridi- 
cule of posterity for a low conception, though uttered by 
such characters as these. 



* Iliad. 1. 1. V. 225. 

t " The very day when — a veil." All this is implied in the word 
auaKaKvTTTTjpLcou. It was the custom throughout Greece, and the Gre- 
cian colonies, for the unmarried women never to appear in public, or 
to converse with men, without a veil. The second or third day after 
marriage, it was usual for the bridegroom to make presents to his 
bride, which were called avaKaXvirrripia, for then she immediately 
unveiled, and liberty was given him to converse freely with her ever 
after. — See Potter^ s Antiquities, v. ii. 

% Plato 5. Legum. § Plato 6. Legum. 

11 " When he calls — of the eye." The critics are strangely divided 
about the justice of this remark. Authorities are urged, and parallel 
expressions quoted on both sides. Longinus blames it, but afterwards 
candidly alleges the only plea which can be urged in its favour, that it 
was said by drunken barbarians. And who, but such sots, would have 
given the most delightful objects in nature so rude and uncivil an 
appellation ? I appeal to the ladies for the propriety of this obsen^ation. 
— Herod. Terpsichore, c. 18. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



9 



SECTION y. 

Now all such instances of the mean and poor in composi- 
tion take their rise from the same original ; I mean that 
eager pm^suit of uncommon tm-ns of thought, which most 
infatuates the writers of the present age. For our excel- 
lences and defects flow from the same common source. So 
that those elegant, subhme, and sweet expressions, which 
contribute so much to success in writing, are frequently 
made the causes and foundations of opposite failures. This 
is manifest in hyperboles and plurals ; but the danger 
attending an injudicious use of these figures, I shall exhibit 
in the sequel of this work. At present it is incumbent 
upon me to inquire, by what means we may be enabled to 
avoid those vices, which border so near upon, and are so 
easily blended with, the true subhme. 



SECTION VL 

And this may be, if we first of all gain a thorough and 
critical insight into the nature of the true subhme ; which, 
however, is by no means an easy acquisition. For to pass a 
right judgment upon composition is the last result of long 
experience. Not but that, a power of distinguishing in these 
things, may perhaps be acquired by attending to some 
such precepts as I am about to dehver. 



SECTION YII. 

It should be understood, my dearest friend, that as in the 
affairs of life there is nothing great, which it is magnani- 
mous to despise ; as, for example, riches, honours, titles, 
crowns, and whatever is varnished over with an imposing 
exterior, can never be regarded as worthy of preference in 
the opinion of a wise man ; since to think Hghtly of such 
things is no ordinary excellence ; for certainly the persons 
who have ability sufl&cient to acquire, but scorn them, are 
more admired than those who actually possess them : much 
in the same way also must we judge in respect of the sub- 
hme, both in poetry and prose. We must carefully examine 
whether some things be not tricked out with this seeming 



10 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



grandeur, this imposing exterior of varnish thick laid on, and 
which, when examined, would be found a mere delusion ; 
meriting the contempt rather than the admiration of a 
truly great mind. For"^ some how or other the soul is natu- 
rally elevated by the true subhme, and, lifted up with exul- 
tation, is filled with transport and inward pride, as if what 
was only heard had been the product of its own invention. 

He therefore who has a competent share of natural and 
acquired taste, may easily discover the value of any per- 
formance from often hearing it. If he finds that it trans- 
ports not his soul, nor exalts his thoughts ; that it leaves 
not in his mind matter of more enlarged reflection than 
the mere sounds of the words convey, but that on attentive 
examination its dignity lessens and dechnes ; he may con- 
clude, that whatever pierces no deeper than the ears, can 
never be the true subhme. For thatf is truly grand and 



* It is remarked in the notes to Boileau's translation, that the great 
Prince of Conde, upon hearing this passage, cried out, Voila le Sublime ! 
voila son veritable caractere ! 

t " This is a very fine description of the sublime, and finer still, 
l?ecause it is veiy sublime itself. But it is only a description ; and it 
does not appear that Longinus intended, any where in this treatise, to 
give an exact definition of it. The reason is, because he wote after 
Cecihus, who, (as he teUs us) had employed aU his book, in defining 
and showing what the subhme is. But since this book of Cecilius is 
lost, I beheve it will not be amiss to venture here a definition of it my 
own w^ay, which may give at least an imperfect idea of it. Tliis is the 
manner in which I think it may be defined. The subhme is a certain 
force in discourse, proper to elevate and transport the soul ; and which 
proceeds either fi'om grandeur of thought and nobleness of sentiment, 
or from magnificence of words, or an harmonious, hvely, and animated 
turn of expression ; that is to say, from any one of these particulars 
regarded separately, or, what makes the perfect subhme, fi'om these 
three particulars joined together." 

Thus far are Boileau's own words in his twelfth reflection on Lon- 
ginus, where, to illustrate the preceding definition, he subjoins an ex- 
ample from Racine's Athalie, or Abner, of these tln-ee particular quali- 
fications of sublimity joined together. One of the principal officers 
of the court of Judah represents to Jehoiada, the high-priest, the 
excessive rage of Athahah against him and aU the Levites ; adding, that, 
in his opinion, the haughty princess would in a short time come and 
attack God even in his sanctuary. To this the high-priest, not in the 
least moved, answers : 

Celui qui met un frein a la fureur des flots, 

Sait aussi des mechans arreter les c'^^'^plots, 

Soumis avec respect a sa volonife'sainte, 

Je Grains Dieu, cher Abner, et n'ai point d'autre crainte. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



11 



lofty, which, the more we consider, the greater ideas we 
conceive of it ; whose force is hard, or rather, impossible 
to withstand ; which sinks deep, and makes such impres- 
sions on the mind as cannot be easily worn out or effaced. 
In a word, yon may pronounce that subhme to be com- 
mendable, and genuine, which pleases all sorts of men at 
all times. For when persons of different pursuits, habits of 
life, tastes, ages, principles, agi^e in the same joint appro- 
bation of any performance ; then this union of assent, this 
combination of so many different judgments, stamps a high 
and indisputable value on that performance, which meets 
with such general applause. 



SECTION VIII. 

Now there are, if I may so express it, five very copious 
soui'ces of the sublime, if we pre-suppose a talent for 
speaking, as a common foundation for these five sorts ; and 
indeed without it, any thing whatever will avail but little. 

I. The first and most potent of these is a felicitous bold- 
ness in the thoughts, as I have laid down in my Essay on 
Xenophon. 

II. The second is a capacity of intense, and enthusiastic 
.passion ; and these two constituents of the sublime, are for 
the most part the immediate gifts of nature, whereas the 
remaining sources depend also upon art. 

III. The third consists in a skilful moulding of figures, 
which are two-fold, of sentiment and language. 

IV. The fourth is a noble and graceful manner of ex- 
pression, which is, not only to select significant and elegant 
words, but also to adorn, the style, and embellish it by the 
assistance of Tropes. t- v ' 

V. The fifth source of the sublime, which embraces all 
the preceding, is to construct the periods, v.ith all possible 
dignity and grandeur. (See chap. xxxLx.) > 

I proceed next to consider what is comprehended in each 
of these sources ; but must first observe, that, of the five^ 
Cecilius, among other defects, has wholly omitted the pa- 
thetic. Now, if he thought that the grand and pathetic, 
as one and the same thing, were always found together, 
and were naturally inseparable, he was under a mistake. 



12 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



For some passions are far removed from grandeur, and are 
in themselves of a lowly character as pity, grief, fear; 
and on the contrary, there are many things grand and lofty 
without any passion ;f as, among a thousand instances, we 
may see, from what the poet has said, with such exceed- 
ing boldness, of the Aloides : J 



* " Some passions are/' &c. The pathetic without grandeur is 
preferable to that which is great without passion. Whenever both 
unite, the passage will be excellent ; and there is more of this in the 
book of Job, than in any other composition in the world. Longinus 
has here quoted a tine instance of the latter from Homer, but has pro- 
duced none of the former, or the pathetic without grandeur. 

When a writer apphes to the more tender passions of love and pity, 
when a speaker endeavours to engage our affections, or gain our esteem, 
he may succeed well, though there be nothing grand in what he says. 
Kay, grandeur would sometunes be unseasonable in such cases, as it 
strikes always at the imagination. 

There is a deal of this sort of pathetic in the words of our Saviour 
to the poor Jews, who were imposed upon and deluded into fatal eiTors 
by the Scribes and Pharisees, who had long been guilty of the hea^dest 
oppression on the minds of the people : (Matt. xi. 28 — 30.) " Come 
unto me, aU ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and 
lowly in heart, and he shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is 
easy, and my burden is light." 

So again in Matt, xxiii. 37. after taking notice of the cruelties, inhu- 
manities, and mm'ders, which the Jewish nation had been guilty of 
towards those who had exhorted them to repentance, or would have 
recalled them from thek blindness and superstition to the practice of 
real rehgion and wtue, he on a sudden breaks off with, 

" 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that kiUest the prophets, and stonest 
them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy 
cliildren together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
v. ings, and ye would not !" 

The expression here is vulgar and common, the allusion to the hen 
taken from an object which is daily before our eyes, and yet there is as 
much tenderness and significance in it as can any where be found in the 
siime compass. 

I beg leave to obsen^e farther, that there is a continued strain of this 
sort of pathetic in St. Paul's farewell speech to the Ephesian elders in 
Acts XX. What an efi"ect it had upon his audience is plain from ver. 
36 — 38. It is scarcely possible to read it seriously without tears. 

t The first book of Paradise Lost is a continued instance of sublimity 
without passion. The descriptions of Satan and the other fallen 
angels ai'C very grand, but temble. They do not so much exalt as ter- 
rif)' the imagination. See Mr. Addison's observations, Spectator, No. 339. 

X " The poet." Longinus, as well as many other ^Titers, fre- 
quently styles Homer, by way of eminence, the poet, as if none but 
he had deserved that title. — Odyss. A. v. 314. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



13 



To raise 

Huge Ossa on Olympus' top they strove, 

And place on Ossa Pelion with its grove ; 

That heaven itself, thus climb'd, might be assailed.* 

But the sublimity of wliat he afterwards adds is yet 
greater : 

Nor would success their bold attempts have fail'd, &c. 

Among the orators also^ all panegyrics, and orations com- 
posed for pomp and show, may be sublime in eveiy way, 
but yet are for the most part void of passion. Whence those 
orators, who excel in the pathetic, scarcely ever succeed as 
panegyrists ; and those whose talents he chiefly in pane- 
gyric, are very seldom able in affecting the passions. But, on 
the other hand, if Cecihus was of opinion, that the pathetic 
did not contribute to the sublime, and on that account 
judged it not worth mentioning, he is guilty of an unpar- 
donable error. For I might confidently aver, that nothing 
so much raises discourse, as a fine pathos seasonably ap- 
phed. For it is this that causes it to breathe forth an 
energy and fire, resembling the intensity of madness and 
divine instinct, and inspires it in a manner with the pre- 
sent god. 



PART L 



SECTION IX. 

But though the first and most important of these divisions, 
I mean, elevation of thought, be rather a natural than an 
acquired quahfication, yet we ought to spare no pains to 
educate our souls to grandeur, and impregnate them, as it 
were, with generous and enlarged ideas. 

''But how," it will be asked, ''can this be done?" I 
hinted in another place, that this subhme is an echo of 
the inward greatness of the soul. Hence it comes to pass, 



* Milton has equalled, if not excelled, these bold lines of Homer in 
his fight of angels. See Mr. Addison's fine observations upon it, 
Spectator, No. 333. 

C 



14 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



that a bare thoiiglit without words challenges admiration, 
for the sake of its grandeur alone. Such is the silence of 
Ajax"^ in the Odyssey, bk. xi. v. 565, which is undoubtedly 
great, and far loftier than anything he could have said. 



* " The silence of Ajax," &c. Dido in Virgil behaves with the 
same greatness and majesty as Homer's Ajax. He disdains the con- 
versation of the man, who, to his thinking, had injuriously defrauded 
him of the ai'ms of Achilles ; and she scorns to hold conference with 
him, who, in her own opinion, had basely forsaken her ; and, by her 
silent retreat, shows her resentment, and reprimands ^Eneas more than 
she could have done in a thousand words. 

Ilia solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat, &c. 

Disdainfully she look'd ; then turning round, 
She fix'd her eyes unmov'd upon the ground, 
And what he looks and swears regards no more 
Than the deaf rocks, when the loud biUows roar. 
But whirl'd away to shun his hatefid sight. 
Hid in the forest and the shades of night. — Dryden. 

The pathetic, as weU as the grand, is expressed as strongly by 
silence, or a bare word, as in a number of periods. There is an admir- 
able instance of it in Shakspeare's Juhus Csesar, Act iv. Sc. 4. The 
preceding scene is wrought up in a masterly manner : we see there, 
in the truest light, the noble and generous resentment of Brutus, and 
the hasty choler and as hasty repentance of Cassius. After the recon- 
cihation, in the beginning of the next scene, Brutus addresses himself 
to Cassius. 

Bru, 0 Cassius ! I am sick of many griefs. 
Cas. Of your philosophy you make no use. 
If you give way to accidental e\ils. 

Bru. No man bears sorrow better Portia^s dead. 

Cas. Ha! Portia! 

Bm. She is dead. 

Cas. How 'scap'd I killing when I cross'd you so ? 

The stroke is hea^ier, as it comes unexpected. The grief is abrupt, 
because it is inexpressible. The heart is melted in an instant, and 
tears will start at once in any audience that has generosity enough to be 
moved, or is capable of sorrow and pity. 

When words are too weak, or colours too faint, to represent a pathos, 
as the poet will be silent, so the painter will hide what he cannot show. 
Timanthes, in his Sacrifice of Iphigenia, gave Calchas a sorrowful look ; 
he then painted Ulysses more sorrowful; and afterwards her uncle 
Menelaus, with all the grief and concern in his countenance which 
his pencil was able to display. By this gradation he had exhausted the 
passion, and had no art left for the distress of her father Agamemnon, 
which required the strongest heightening of aU. He therefore covered 
up his head in his garment, and left the spectator to imagine that ex- 
cess of anguish which colours were unable to express. 



LONGlNtIS ON THE SUBLIME, 



15 



To arrive at excellence like this, then, we must needs 
pre-suppose as the primary cause of it, that an orator of the 
true genius must have no mean and ungenerous way of 
thinking. For it is impossible for those who have grovell- 
ing and servile ideas, or are engaged in sordid pursuits all 
their life, to produce any thing worthy of admiration, and 
the praise of all posterity. But grand and subhme expres- 
sions must in reason flow from them alone, whose concep- 
tions are stored and big with greatness. And thus it is, 
that grand thoughts are commonly found to have been 
uttered by men of the loftiest minds. When Parmenio 
cried, I would accept these proposals, if I were Alexan- 
der;"* Alexander rephed, ''And so would I, if I were 
Parmenio his answer showed the greatness of his mind. 

So the space between heaven and earthf marks out the 
vast reach and capacity of Homer's genius, when he 
says, J 

While scarce the skies her horrid head can bound, 
She stalks on earth, §—Pojye. 



* " I would accept these proposals/' &c. There is a great gap in 
the original after these "words. The sense has been supphed by the 
editors from the well-known records of history. The proposals here 
mentioned were made to Alexander by Daiius ; and were no less than 
his own daughter, and half his kingdom, to purchase peace. They 
would have contented Parmenio, but were quite too small for the ex- 
tensive ^iews of his master. 

So when Iphicrates appeared to answer an accusation preferred 
against him by Aristophon, he demanded of him, " ^A'hether he would 
have betrayed his counti-y for a sum of money ?" Aristophon replied 
in the negative. " Have I then done," cried Iphicrates, " what even 
you would have scorned to do ?" 

There is the same e^-idence of a generous heart in the Prince of 
Orange's reply to the Duke of Buckingham, who, to inchne him to an 
inglorious peace with the French, demanded, what he could do in that 
desperate situation of himself and his countr}* ? " Not hye to see its 
ruin, but die in the last dike." 

These short repHes have more force, show a greater soul, and make 
deeper impressions, than the most laboured discourses. The soul seems 
to rouse and collect itself, and then darts forth at once in the noblest 
and most conspicuous point of ^iew. 

t Dr. Pearce has taken notice of a similar thought in the AYisdom of 
Solomon : " Thy almighty Word leaped down — it touched the heaven, 
but it stood upon the earth." Chap, x^iii. 15, 16. 

+ Ihad. iv. V. 443. 

§ See the note to this description of Discord, in Mr. Pope's transla - 
tion. Virgil has copied it verhatim, but apphed it to Fame : — 



16 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



This description may with no less justice be applied to 
Homer's genius than to Discord. 

But what disparity, what a fall there is in Hesiod's* des- 



Ingrediturque solo et caput inter nubila condit. 

Soon grows the pigmy to gigantic size, 
Her feet on earth, her forehead in the skies. 
Shakspeare, without any imitation of these great masters, has, by 
the natural strength of his own genius, described the extent of Slander 
in the greatest pomp of expression, elevation of thought, and fertility 
of invention : 

Slander, 

"Whose head is sharper than the sword, whose tongue 
Out-venoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath 
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie 
AU corners of the world. Kings, queens, and states, 
Maids, matrons, nay the secrets of the grave, 
This viperous slander enters. — Cymbeline. 
And Milton's description of Satan, when he prepares for the combat, 
is (according to Mr. Addison, Spectator, No. 321.) equally sublime 
with either the description of Discord in Homer, or that of Fame in 
Virgil : 

Satan alarm'd. 
Collecting all his might, dilated stood 
Like Teneriff or Atlas unremov'd : 
His stature reach' d the sky, and on his crest 
Sat horror plum'd.- — 
* The image of Hesiod, here blamed by Longinus, is borrowed from 
low life, and has something in it exceedingly nasty. It olfends the 
stomach, and of course cannot be approved by the judgment. This 
brings to my remembrance the conduct of Milton, in his description of 
Sin and Death, who are set off in the most horrible deformity. In 
that of Sin, there is indeed something loathsome ; and what ought to 
be painted in that manner sooner than Sin ? Yet the circumstances are 
picked out with the nicest skiU, and raise a natural abhorrence of such 
hideous objects. — 

The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair, 
But ended foul in many a scaly fold. 
Voluminous and vast ! a serpent arm'd 
With mortal sting : about her middle round 
A cry of hell-hounds never ceasing bark'd 
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung 
A hideous peal : Yet when they Ust would creep. 
If aught disturb'd their noise, into her womb. 
And kennel there ; yet there stiU bark'd, and howl'd 
Within, unseen.— 
Of Death he says. 

Black it stood as night, 
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, 
And shook a dreadful dart. 



LONGIXrS ON THE SUBLIME. 



17 



cription of Melancholy, if, at least, the poem of the Shield 
may be ascribed to him ! 

A filthy moisture from her nostrils fiow'd.* 

He has not represented his image as terrible, bnt hateful. 
On the other hand, \rith what majesty and pomp does 
Homer exalt his deities ! 

Far as a shepherd from some spot on high 
O'er the wide main extends his boundless eye, 
Through such a spaee of air, with thund'ring sound, 
At one long leap th' immortal coui'sers bound.f — Pope, 



But Milton's judiciousness in selecting such circumstances as tend to 
raise a just and natural aversion, is no where more visible than in his 
description of a lazar-house, book 11th. An inferior genius might 
have amused himself, with expatiatmg on the filthy and nauseous ob- 
jects abounding in so horrible a scene, and written perhaps Like a 
surgeon rather than a poet. But ^lilton aims only at the passions, by 
showing the miseries entailed upon man, in the most atfecting manner, 
and exciting at once our hon'or at the woes of the afflicted, and a gener- 
ous sjTapathy in all their afflictions. 

Immediately a place 
Before his eyes appear'd, sad, noisome, dark, &c. 

It is too long to quote, but the whole is exceedingly poetic ; the 
latter part of it sublime, solemn, and touching. We startle and groan 
at this scene of miseries, in which the whole race of mankind is perpe- 
tually involved, and of some of which we om*selves must one day be 
victims. 

Sight so deform, what heart of rock could long 
Dr\'-ey'd behold I 

To return to the remark. There is a serious turn, an inborn sedate- 
ness in the mind, which renders images of terror grateful and en- 
gaging. Agreeable sensations are not only produced by bright and 
lively objects, but sometimes by such as are gloomy and solemn. It is 
not the blue sky, the cheerful sunshine, or the smiling landscape, that 
give us aH our pleasure, since we are indebted for no little share of it 
to the silent night, the distant howUng wHdemess, the melancholy 
grot, the dark wood, and hanging precipice. \^'hat is terrible cannot 
be described too well ; what is disagreeable should not be described at 
aU, or at least 'should be strongly shaded, ^^lien Apelles drew the 
portrait of Antigonus, who had lost an eye, he judiciously took his face 
in proffle, that he might hide the blemish. It is the art of the painter 
to please, and not to offend the sight. It is the poet's to make us 
sometimes thoughtful and sedate, but never to raise our distaste by foul 
and nauseous representations. 

* Hesiod. in Scuto Here. v. 267. f Iliad, v. 770. 

c 2 



18 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



He measures the leap of the horses by the extent of the 
world. And who is there, that, considering the exceeding 
greatness of the space, would not with good reason cry out, 
that " if the steeds of the Deity were to take a second leap, 
the world itself would want room for it !" 

How grand too are those creations of the imagination in 
the combat of the gods !* 

Heav'n in loud thunders bids the trumpet sound, 
And wide beneath them groans the rending ground.f 
Deep in the dismal regions of the dead 
Th' infernal monarch rear'd his horrid head ; 



* Mnton's description of the fight of angels is well able to stand a 
parallel with the combat of the gods in Homer. His Venus and Mars 
make a ludicrous sort of appearance, after their defeat by Diomede. 
The engagement between Juno and Latona has a Httle of the air of 
burlesque. His commentators indeed labour heartily in his defence, 
and discover fine allegories under these saUies of his fancy. This may 
satisfy them, but is by no means a sufficient excuse for the poet. 
Homer's excellencies are indeed so many and so great, that they easily 
inchne us to grow fond of those few blemishes which are discernible 
in his poems, and to contend that he is broad awake, when he is actu- 
ally nodding. But let us return to Milton, and take notice of the fol- 
lowing lines : 

Now storming fury rose 
And clamour, such as heard in heav'n, till now. 
Was never ; arms on armour clashing bray'd 
Horrible discord, and the madding wheels 
Of brazen chariots rag'd : dire was the noise 
Of conflict ! over head the dismal hiss 
Of fiery darts in flaming voUies flew. 
And flying vaulted either host mth fire. 
So under fiery cope together rush'd 
Both battles main, with ruinous assault 
And inextinguishable rage : all heav'n 
Resounded ; and had earth been then, all earth 
Had to her centre shook. 

The thought of "fiery arches being drawn over the armies by the 
flight of flaming arrows," may give us some idea of Milton's hvely ima- 
gination; as the last thought, which is superlatively great, of the 
reach of his genius : 

And had earth been then, all earth 
Had to her centre shook. 

He seems apprehensive, that the mind of his .readers was not stocked 
enough with ideas, to enable them to form a notion of this battle ; and 
to raise it the more, recals to their remembrance the time, or that part 
of infinite duration in which it was fought, before time was, when this 
visible creation existed only in the prescience of God. 

t lUad. (p, ver. 338. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



19 



Leap'd from his throne, lest Neptune's arm should lay 
His dark dominions open to the day, 
And pour in Light on Pluto's drear abodes, 
Abhorr'd bv men, and dreadful ev'n to gods.* — Pope. 

What a prospect is here^ my fiiendlf The earth laid 
open to its centre ; Tartarus itself disclosed to view ; the 
whole world turned upside down and rent in twain ; all 
things at once — heaven, hell, things mortal and immortal 
share alike the toil and danger of that battle ! These are 
terrific representations, but if not allegorically understood, 
are inapphcable to deity, and violate the laws of propri- 
ety. J For Homer, in my opinion, when he relates the 
wounds, the seditions, the retahations, imprisonments, and 
tears of the deities, with those evils of every kind imder 
which they languish, has to the utmost of his power exalted 
the heroes, who fought at Troy, into gods, and degraded 
the gods into men. Nay, he makes their condition worse 
than human ; for when man is overwhelmed with misfor- 
tunes, he has a reserve in the peaceful haven of death. But 
he makes the infehcity of the gods as everlasting as their 
nature. 

But how far does he excel those descriptions of the 
combats of the gods, when he sets a deity in his true hght, 
and paints him in all his majesty, purity, and perfection ; 
as in that description of Neptune, which has been handled 
already by several writers : 

Fierce as he pass'd the lofty mountains nod, 
The forests shake, earth trembled as he trod. 
And felt the footsteps of th' immortal god.§ 



* lUad. V. ver. 61. 

t That magnificent description of the combat of the gods, cannot 
possibly be expressed or displayed in more concise, more clear, or more 
sublime terms, than here in Longinus. This is the excellence of a true 
critic, to be able to discern the excellences of his author, and to dis- 
play his own in illustrating them. — Dr. Pearce. 

X Plutarch, in his treatise on reading the poets, is of the same opi- 
nion with Longiuus : AMien you read (says he) in Homer, of gods 
thrown out of heaven by one another, or of gods wounded by quarrel- 
hng with, and snarling at, one another, you may with reason say, 

Here had thy fancy glow'd with usual heat. 
Thy gods had shone more uniformly great." 

§ The deity is described, in a thousand passages of Scripture, in 
greater majesty, pomp, and perfection, than that in which Homer 
arrays his gods. The books of Psalms and Job abound in such 



20 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



His whirling wheels the glassy surface sweep ; 

Th' enormous monsters, rolling o'er the deep, 

Gambol around him on the wat'ry way. 

And heavy whales in awkward measures play ; 

The sea subsiding spreads a level plain. 

Exults and owns the monarch of the main : 

The parting waves before his com'sers fly ; 

The wondering waters leave the axle dry.*— Po^e. 

So likewise the Jewish legislator, no ordinary person, 
having conceived a just idea of the power of God, has nobly- 
expressed it in the beginning of his law.f "And God 



divine descriptions. That particularly in Psalm xviii ver. 7. — 10, is 
inimitably grand : 

" Then the earth shook and trembled, the foundations also of the 
hills moved, and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up 
a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured : coals 
were kindled at it. He bowed the heavens also and came down, and 
darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly, 
and came flying upon the wings of the v^ind." So again. Psalm Ixx-vii. 
16 — 19. " The waters saw thee, 0 God, the waters saw thee, and were 
afraid : the depths also were troubled. The clouds pom^ed out water, the 
air thundered, and thine arrows went abroad. The voice of thy thunder 
was heard round about ; the lightnings shone upon the ground, the 
earth was moved and shook vrithal. Thy way is in the sea, and thy 
paths in great waters, and thy footsteps are not known." 

And in general, wherever there is any description of the works of 
Omnipotence, or the excellence of the divine Being, the same vein of 
sublimity is always to be discerned. I beg the reader to peruse in this 
view the following Psalms, xl\'i. Ix^iii. Ixxvi. xc^i. xcvii. civ. cxxxix. 
exhiii. as also chapter iii. of Habakkuk, and the description of the Son 
of God in the book of Revelation, chap. xix. 11 — 17. 

Copying such sublime images in the poetical parts of Scripture, and 
heating Ms imagination with the combat of the gods in Homer, has 
made Milton succeed so well in his fight of angels. If Homer desen^es 
such vast encomiums fi-om the critics, for describing Neptune with so 
much pomp and magnificence, how can we sufliciently admire those 
divine descriptions which Milton gives of the Messiah ? 

He on the wings of cherub rode sublime 
On the crystalline sky, in sapphire thron'd 
Illustrious far and v^ide. — 
Before him pow'r Divine his way prepar'd ; 
At his command th' up-rooted hills retired 
Each to his place, they heard his voice and went 
Obsequious : Heav'n his wonted face renewed, 
And with fresh flowTets hill and valley smil'd. 

* Ihad. xi. ver. 18—27. 

t This di\-ine passage has furnished a handle for many of those who 
are wilHng to be thought critics, to show their pertness and stupidity 
at once. Though bright as the hght of which it speaks, they are bhnd 



LOXGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



21 



said, — What ? — Let there be light, and there was hght. 
Let the earth be, and the earth was/'^ 

I hope my friend will not think me tedious, if I add 
another quotation from the poet, where he treats of mortal 
things ; that you may see how he is accustomed to mount 
along with his heroes to heights of grandeur. A thick 
cloud and embarrassing darkness as of night, envelopes 



to its lustre, and will not discern its sublimity. Some pretend that 
Longinus never saw this passage, though he has actually quoted it ; 
and that he never read Moses, though he has left so candid an acknow- 
ledgment of his spirit. In such company, some, no douot, will be 
surprised to find the names of Huet and Le Clerc. They have examined, 
taken to pieces, and sifted it as long as they were able, yet still they 
cannot find it sublime. It is simple, say they, and therefore not grand. 
They have tried it by a law of Horace, misunderstood, and therefore 
condemn it. 

Boileau undertook its defence, and has gallantly performed it. He 
shows them, that simphcity of expression is so far from being opposed 
to subhmity, that it is frequently the cause and foundation of it ; (and 
indeed there is not a page in Scripture which abounds not with in- 
stances to strengthen this remark.) Horace's law, that a leyinning 
should be unadoraed^ does not by any means forbid it to be grand, 
since grandeur consists not in ornament and dress. He then shows at 
large, that whatever noble and majestic expression, elevation of thought, 
and importance of event, can contribute to subhmits', may be found 
united in this passage. AVhoever has the curiosity to see the particu- 
lars of this dispute, may find it in the edition of Boileau's works, in 
four volumes 12mo. 

It is however remarkable, that though ]\Ionsieur Huet will not aUow 
the sublimity of this passage in Moses, yet he extols the following in 
Psalm xxxiii. : For he spake, audit was done ; he commanded, and it 
stood fast." 

There is a particularity in the manner of quoting this passage by 
Longinus, which I think has hitherto escaped obseiwation. " God said 
— JVhat ? — Let there be hght," &c. That interrogation between the 
narrative part and the words of the Almighty' himself, canies with it an 
air of reverence and veneration. It seems designed to awaken the 
reader, and raise his a^vful attention to the voice of the great Creator. 

Instances of this majestic simphcity and unafi"ected grandeur, are to 
be met with in great plenty through the sacred writings. Such as St. 
John xi. 43. " Lazarus, come forth." St. Matt, viii. 3. " Lord, if 
tliou wilt, thou canst make me clean." — " I will ; be thou clean." And 
St. ^lark iv. 39. where Christ hushes the tumultuous sea into a calm, 
with " Peace (or rather, be silent,) be still." The waters (says a critic, 
Sacred Classics, p. 325.) heard that voice, which commanded universal 
nature into being. They sank at his command, who has the sole privi- 
lege of saving to that unruly element, Hitherto shalt thou pass, and 
no farther : here shall thy proud waves be stopped." 

* Gen. i. 3. 



22 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



the Grecian army, and suspends the battle. Ajax, perplexed 
what course to take, prays thus : 

Accept a warrior's prayer, eternal Jove ; 
This cloud of darkness from the Greeks remove ; 
Give us but light, and let us see om' foes, 
We'll bravely fall, though Jove himself oppose.* 

The feehngs of Ajax are here expressed to the life : 
it is Ajax himself. He begs not for life ; a request hke 
that would be beneath a hero. But because in that ham- 
pering darkness he could display his valour in no illustrious 
exploit, and his great heart was unable to brook a sluggish 
inactivity in the field of action, he prays for instant light, 
not doubting to crown his fall with some meritorious deed, 
though Jove himself should oppose his efforts. Here, 
indeed. Homer, like a brisk and favourable gale, swells 
the fury of the battle ; he is as warm and impetuous as his 
heroes, or (as he says of Hector) 

With such a furious rage his steps advance, 
As when the god of battles shakes his lance, 
Or baleful flames, on some thick forest cast, 
Svrift marching, lay the wooded mountain waste : 
Around his mouth a foamy moisture stands.f 

Yet Homer himself shows in the Odyssey (the remark I 
am going to add is necessary on several accounts,) that 
when a great genius is in dechne, a fondness for the fabu- 
lous chngs fast to age. Many arguments may be brought 
to prove that this poem was written after the Hiad ; but 
this especially, that in the Odyssey he has introduced the 
sequel of those calamities, which began at Troy, as so many 
episodes of the Trojan war ; and that therein he renders 
to his heroes the tribute of mourning and lamentations, as 
that which he had previously resolved to be due to them. 
For, in reahty, the Odyssey is no more than the epilogue of 
the Hiad : 

There warlike Ajax, there Achilles lies, 
Patroclus there, a man di^anely \^ise ; 
There too my dearest son.J 

It proceeds, I suppose, from the same cause, that 
having written the Ihad in the youth and vigour of his 
genius, he has furnished it with continued scenes of action 
and combat ; whereas the greatest part of the Odyssey con- 
sists of narrative, the characteristic of old age. So that. 



* Iliad, xvii. ver. 645. f Iliad, xv. ver. 605. t Odyss. iii. ver. 109. 



LOXGIXUS ON THE SL'BLIME. 



23 



in the Odyssey, Homer may vriih justice be likened to 
the setting sun, whose grandeur still remains, mthout the 
meridian heat of his beams. For the style is not so grand 

* Never did any criticism equal, much less exceed, this of Longinus 
in sublimity. He gives his opinion, that Homer's Odyssey, being the 
work of his old age, and written in the dechne of his life, and in every 
respect equal to the IHad, except in violence and impetuosity, may be 
resembled to " the setting sun, whose grandeur continues the same, 
though its rays retain not the same fer^'ent heat." Let us here take a 
view of Longinus, whilst he points out the beauties of the best T\Titers, 
and at the same time his own. Equal himself to the most celebrated 
authors, he gives them the eulogies due to theh merit. He not only 
judges his predecessors by the true laws and standard of good writing, 
but leaves posterity in himself a model and pattern of genius and judg- 
ment. — Pearce. 

This comparison of Homer to the sun, is certainly an honour to poet 
and critic. The resemblance is beautiful, and just. He describes 
Homer in the same elevation of thought, as Homer himself would have 
set off his heroes. For genius ^ill show its spirit, and in even- age and 
chmate display its natural its inherent rigour. This remark will, I hope, 
be a proper introduction to the following Hues of Alilton ; where gran- 
deur, impaired and in decay, is described by an allusion to the sun in 
eclipse, by which our ideas are wonderfully raised to a conception of 
what it was in all its glory : 

He, above the rest, 
In shape and gesture proudly eminent. 
Stood hke a tow'r : his form not yet had lost 
All her original brightness, nor appeared 
Less than archangel i-uin'd, and th' excess 
Of glor}- obsciu:'d : as when the sun new-ris'n 
Looks through the horizontal misty air. 
Shorn of his beams ; or from behind the moon. 
In dim echpse, disastrous twihght sheds 
On half the nations, and with fear of change 
Perplexes monarchs ; darken'd so, yet shone 
Above them all th' archangel. 

That horrible grandeur in wliich Milton arrays his devils throughout 
liis poem, is an honourable proof of the stretch of his invention, and 
the sohdity of his judgment. Tasso, in his 4th canto, has opened a 
council of devils ; but his description of them is frivolous and puerile, 
savouring too much of old women's tales, and the fantastic dreams of 
ignorance. He makes some of them walk upon the feet of beasts, and 
dresses out their resemblance of a human head with twsting serpents 
instead of hair ; horns sprout upon their foreheads, and after them 
they drag an immense length of tail. It is true, when he makes his 
Pluto speak (for he has made use of the old poetical names,) he sup- 
ports his character with a deal of spirit, and puts such words and senti- 
ments into his mouth as are properly diabohcal. His devil talks some- 
what like Milton's, but looks not vrith half that horrible pomp, that 
height of obsciu*ed glory. 

! 

I 



24 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



and majestic as that of the Iliad ; the subhmity not kept 
up in so uniform and sustained a manner throughout ; the 
tides of passion flow not so copiously, nor in such rapid 
succession ; there is not the same fertility of invention and 
oratorical energy ; nor is it adorned with such a throng of 
images drawn from real life ; but Hke the ocean when he 
retires within himself, and forsakes his proper bounds, so 
the genius of Homer still exhibits the ebbing of a mighty tide 
even in those fabulous and incredible rambhngs of Ulysses. 
Not that I am forgetful of those storms, which are described 
in several parts of the Odyssey ; of Ulysses' adventures 
with the Cyclops, and some other instances of the true 
sublime. No; I am speaking, indeed, of old age, but it is 
the old age of Homer. However, it is evident, from the 
whole series of the Odyssey, that there is far more of fiction 
in it than of real life. 

I have digressed thus far merely for the sake of showing,' 
as I observed, that, in the dechne of their vigour, the 
greatest geniuses are apt to turn aside into trifles. Those 
stories of shutting up the winds in a bag : of the men fed 
by Circe hke swine, whom Zoilus* calls weeping porkers ; 
of Jupiter's being nursed by doves like one of their young ; 
of Ulysses in a wreck, when he took no sustenance for ten 
days ; and those improbabilities about the slaughter of the 
suitors — all these are undeniable instances of what I have 
said. Dreams indeed they are, but such as even Jove might 
dream, f 

Accept, my friend, in further excuse of this inquiry into 
the character of the Odyssey, my desire of convincing you, 
that a decrease of the pathetic in great orators and poets 

* " Zoilus." The most infamous name of a certain author, of Thra- I 
cian extraction, who wrote a treatise against the Ihad and Odyssey of 
Homer, and entitled it, Homer's Reprimand : which so exasperated ' 
the people of that age, that they put the author to death, and sacrificed 
him as it were to the injured genius of Homer. His enterprise was ' 
certainly too daring, his punishment undoubtedly too severe. — Pearce, 

t After Longinus had thus summed up the imperfections of Homer, 
one might imagine, from the usual bitterness of critics, that a hea\7' 
censure would immediately follow. But the true critic knows how to 
pardon, to excuse, and to extenuate. Such conduct is uncommon, but 
just. We see by it at once the worth of the author, and the candour 
of the judge. With persons of so generous a bent, his translator has 
fared as well as Homer. Mr. Pope's " faults (in that performance) are 
the faults of a man, but his beauties are the beauties of an angel." — 
Essay on the Odyssey. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



25 



often ends in the moral kind of writing."^ Thus the Odys- 
sey, famishing us with ethical narratives relating to that 
course of life which the suitors led in the palace of Ulysses, 
has in some degree the air of a comedy, wherein the various 
manners of men are described. 



SECTION X. 

Let us consider next, whether we cannot find out some 
other means to infuse subhmity into our style. Now, as 
there are no subjects which are not attended by certain 
circumstances, which are always found where they exist, 
a judicious choice of the most suitable of these adjuncts, and 
a faculty of accumulating them into one body, as it were, 
must necessarily produce the sublime. For what by the 
judgment displayed in the cirum stances selected, and what 
by the skilful combination of them, they cannot but attract 
the hearer. 

Sappho is an instance of this ; who, in portraying the 

* The word moral does not fully give the idea of the original word 
ilQos, but our language will not furnish any other that comes so near 
it. The meaning of the passage is, that great authors, in the youth 
and fire of their genius, abound chiefly in such passions as are strong and 
vehement ; but in their old age and dechne, they betake themselves 
to such as are mild, peaceable, and sedate. At tirst they endeavour to 
move, to warm, to transport ; but afterwards to amuse, dehght, and 
persuade. In youth, they strike at the imagination ; in age, they speak 
more to our reason. For though the passions are the same in their 
nature, yet, at different ages, they differ in degree. Love, for instance, 
is a ^'iolent, hot, impetuous passion ; esteem is a sedate, and cool, and 
peaceable affection of the mind. The youthful fits and transports of 
the former, in progress of time, subside and settle into the latter. So 
a storm is different from a gale, though both are wind. Hence it is, 
that bold scenes of action, dreadful alarms, affecting images of terror, 
and such \dolent turns of passion, as require a stretch of fancy to 
express or to conceive, employ the vigour and maturity of youth, in 
which consists the nature of the pathetic ; but amusing narrations^ 
calm descriptions, delightful landscapes, and more even and peaceable 
affections, are agreeable in the ebb of hfe, and therefore more fre- 
quently attempted, and more successfully expressed by a declining 
genius. This is the moral kind of writing here mentioned, and by 
these particulars is Homer's Odyssey distinguished from his Iliad. 
The iraBos and -qOos so frequently used, and so important in the Greek 
critics, are fuILy explained by Quinctilian, in the sixth book of his 
Institut. Orat. 

D 



26 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



characteristics of intense love, always selects her materials 
from its attendant circumstances, and from the passion as 
it really exists in nature. But in what particular has she 
shown her excellence ? In her ability to select those cir- 
cumstances which are most striking and effective, and after- 
wards to connect them together. 

Blest as the immortal gods is he, 
The youth who fondly sits by thee, 
And hears, and sees thee all the while 
Softly speak, and sweetly smile. 

'Twas this depriv'd my soul of rest, 
And rais'd such tumults in my breast ; 
For while I gaz'd, in transport tost. 
My breath was gone, my voice was lost. 

My bosom glow'd ; the subtile flame 
Ran quick through all my vital frame ; 
O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung ; 
My ears with hollow murmurs rung. 

In dewy damps my limbs were chill'd ; 
My blood with gentle horrors thrill'd ; 
My feeble pulse forgot to play, 
I fainted, sunk, and died away.* — Philips. 



* There is a line at the end of this ode of Sappho in the original, 
which is taken no notice of in the translation, because the sense is 
complete without it, and if admitted, it would throw confusion on the 
whole. 

The title of this ode in Ursinus, in the fragments of Sappho, is. To 
the beloved Fair ; and it is the right. For Plutarch (to omit the tes- 
timonies of many others,) in his Eroticon, has these words : " The 
beautiful Sappho says, that at the sight of her beloved fair, her voice 
was suppressed," &c. Besides, Strabo and Athenseus tell us, that the 
name of this fair one was Dorica, and that she was loved by Charaxus, 
Sappho's brother. Let us then suppose that this Dorica, Sappho's 
infamous paramour, receives the addresses of Charaxus, and admits him 
into her company as her lover. This very moment Sappho unexpect- 
edly enters, and, stricken at what she sees, feels tormenting emotions. 
In this ode, therefore, she endeavours to express that wrath, jealousy, 
and anguish, which distracted her mth such variety of torture. This, 
in my opinion, is the subject of the ode. And whoever joins in my 
sentiments, cannot but disapprove the following verses in the French 
translation by Boileau : 

Dans les doux transports ou s'egare mon ame : 

And, 

Je tombe dans des douces langueurs. 
The word doua? will in no wise express the rage and distraction of 
Sappho's mind. It is always used in a contrary sense. Catullus has 
translated this ode almost verbally, and Lucretius has imitated it in his 
third book. — Pearce. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



27 



Are you not amazed, friend, to find how in the same 
moment she is to seek for her soul, her body, her ears, 

The English translation I have borrowed from the Spectator, No. 
229. It was done by Mr. Phihps, and has been xery much applauded, 
though the following hne, 

For while I gaz'd, in transport tost, 

and this, 

My blood with gentle horrors thrill'd, 
'will be liable to the same censm-e with BoUeau's douces langueurs. 

A critique on this ode may be seen in the same Spectator. It has 
been admired in all ages, 'and besides the imitation of it by Catullus 
and Lucretius, a great resemblance of it is easily perceivable in Horace's 
Ode to Lydia, Ub. 1, od. 13, and in Virgil's ^Eneid, lib. 4. 

Longinus attributes its beauty to the judicious choice and grouping 
of the circumstances attendant upon love. It is certainly a passion that 
has more prevalent sensations of pleasure and pain, and affects the 
mind ^vith a greater diversity of impressions than any other. 

Love is a smoke, rais'd with the fume of sighs ; 

Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes : 

Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd ^\ith lovers' tears : 

What is it else ? a madness most discreet, 

A choking gaU, and a preser\1ng sweet. — Romeo and Juliet, 

Th€ quahties of love are certainly very proper for the management of 
a good poet. It is a subject on which many may shine in different 
lights, yet keep clear of all that whining and rant with which the stage 
is continually pestered. Tlie ancients have scarcely meddled with it 
in any of their tragecHes. Shakspeare has shown it, in all degrees, by 
different characters in one or other of his plays. Otway has ^Tought 
it up finely in the Orphan, to raise our pity. Dnden expresses its 
thoughtless violence very well, in his AH for Love. ]\Ir. Addison has 
painted it both successful and unfortunate, ^ith the highest judgment, 
in his Cato. But Adam and Eve, in Milton, are the finest picture of 
conjugal love that ever was drawn. In them it is true warmth of 
affection, without the violence or fury of passion ; a sweet and reason- 
able tenderness, 'without any cloying or insipid fondness. In its sere- 
nity and sunshine, it is noble, amiable, endearing, and innocent. When 
it jars and goes out of tune, as on some occasions it Tvill, there is 
anger and resentment. He is gloomy, she complains and weeps, yet 
love has still its force. Eve knows how to submit, and Adam to for- 
give. We are pleased that they have quarrelled, when we see the 
agreeable manner in which they were reconciled. They have enjoyed 
prosperity, and wiU share adversity, together. And the last scene in 
which we behold this mifortunate couple, is when 

They, hand in hand, v^ith wand'ring steps and slow, 

Through Eden take their sohtary way. 

Tasso, in his Gierusalemme Liberata, has lost no opportunity of 
embellishing his poem with some incidents of this passion. He even 
breaks in upon the rules of Epic, by introducing the episode of Olindo 
and Sophronia, in his 2d canto : for they never appear again in the 



28 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



lier tongue, her eyes, her colour, all of them as much absent 
from her, as if they had never belonged to her ? And what 
contrary affections she feels together ? How she glows, chills, 
raves, reasons ; for either she is in tumults of alarm, or 
she is dying away. The effect of which is, that she seems 
not to be attacked by one alone, but by a combination of 
affections. 

All the symptoms of this kind are true effects of love ; 
but the excellence of this ode, as I observed before, consists 
in the judicious choice and connexion of the most striking 
circumstances. And it proceeds from his due application 
of the most formidable incidents, that the poet excels so 
much in describing tempests. The author of the poem 
on the Arimaspians deems these things full of terror 

Ye pow'rs, what madness ! How on ships so frail 

(Tremendous thought !) can thoughtless mortals sail? 

For stormy seas they quit the pleasing plain, 

Plant woods in waves, and dweU amidst the main. 

Far o'er the deep (a trackless path) they go, 

And wander oceans in pursuit of woe. 

No ease their hearts, no rest their eyes can find, 

On heav'n their looks, and on the waves their mind ; 

Sunk are their spirits, while their arms they rear. 

And gods are wearied with their fruitless pray'r. — Pope. 

But every impartial reader will discern that these lines are 
more florid than terrible. But how does Homer raise a 
description, to mention only o/ie example amongst a thousand ! 



poem, and have no share in the action of it. Two of his great per- 
sonages are a husband and wife, who fight always side by side, and die 
together. The power, the allurements, the t^Tanny of beauty, are amply 
displayed in the coquettish character of Armida, in the 4th canto. He 
indeed always shows the effects of the passion in true colours ; but 
then he does more, he refines and plays upon them with fine-spun 
conceits. He flourishes hke Ovid on every httle incident, and recals 
our attention from the poem, to take notice of the poet's mt. This 
might be writing in the Itahan taste, but it is not nature. Homer was 
above it, in his fine characters of Hector and Andromache, Ulysses and 
Penelope. The judicious Virgil has rejected it, in his natural picture 
of Dido. Milton has followed and improved upon his great masters, 
with dignity and judgment. 

* Aristaeus, the Proconnesian, is said to have written a poem, called 
'ApLjuLaa-Treia ; or, of the affairs of the Arimaspians, a Scythian people, 
situated far from any sea. The hues here quoted seem to be spoken by 
an Arimaspian, wondering how men dare trust themselves in ships, 
and endeavouring to describe the seamen in the extremities of a storm. 
— Pearce. 



LONGIXrS ON THE SUBLIME. 



29 



He bursts upon them all : 
Bursts as a wave that from the cloud impends, 
And sweU'd with tempests on the ship descends ; 
White are the decks ^Y^th foam ; the winds aloud 
Howl o'er the masts, and sing through every shroud : 
Pale, trembling, tir'd, the sailors freeze with fears, 
And instant death on ev'ry wave appears.* — Pojt?e, Iliad xv. 624. 

* There is a description of a tempest in Psalm evii. which runs in 
a very high vein of sublimity, and has more spirit in it than the 
applauded descriptions in the authors of antiquity ; because when the 
storm is in all its rage, and the danger become extreme, almighty 
power is introduced to calm at once the roaring main, and give pre- 
sen-ation to the miserable distressed. It ends in that fervency of devo- 
tion, which such grand occmTences are fitted to raise in the minds 
of the thoughtful. 

" He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the 
waves thereof. They mount up to heaven, they go down again to the 
depths ; their soul is melted away because of trouble . They reel to and 
fro hke a drunken man, and are at thck wit's-end. Then they cry 
unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their dis- 
tresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are 
stilL Then are they glad, because they be quiet ; so he bringeth them 
unto their desired haven. Oh ! that men would praise the Lord for 
his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men !" 

Shakspeare has, with inimitable art, made use of a storm in his 
tragedy of King Lear, and continued it through seven scenes. In read- 
ing it, one sees the piteous condition of those who are exposed to it in 
open air ; one almost hears the ^vind and thunder, and beholds the 
flashes of Hghtning. The anger, furv*, and passionate exclamations of 
Lear himself, seem to rival the storm, which is as outrageous in his 
breast, inflamed and ulcerated by the barbarities of his daughters, as 
in the elements themselves. We \iew him 

Contending with the fretful elements, 

Bid the TNlnd blow the earth into the sea, 

Or swell the curled waters 'hove the main. 

That things might change or cease : tear liis white hair, 

Wliich the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage 

Catch in their fur}*. 

We afterwards see the distressed old man exposed to all the incle- 
mencies of the weather ; natiu-e herself in hurry and disorder, but he as 
\iolent and boisterous as the storm : 

Rumble thy belly-fuU, spit fire, spout rain; 

Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters ; 

I tax not you, ye elements ! 

And immediately after, 

Let the great gods, 
That keep this dreadful thund'ring o'er our heads. 
Find out theu: enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch. 
That hast within thee undivulged crimes 
D 2 



30 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



Aratus has attempted a refinement upon tlie last thought, 
and turned it thus, 

A slender plank preserves them from their fate.* 

But instead of exciting terror, he only lessens and refines 
it away ; and besides, he sets a bound to the impending 
danger, by saying, ''a plank preserves them," and thus 
removes it. But the poet does not once for all hmit the 
danger, but paints them as all but swallowed up ever and 
anon by each successive wave. Nay more, by forcing into 
unnatural composition propositions which ought not to be 
compounded, and clashing them one against another, as in 
v7r€K SavaroLo, he has made the verse exhibit signs of agony, 
corresponding with the calamity it represents ; has mo- 
delled a striking image of it by the jarring of the words ; 



Unwhipt of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand, 
Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man of virtue, 
That art incestuous : caitiff, shake to pieces. 
That under covert and convenient seeming 
Hast practis'd on man's life. Close pent-up guilts, 
Rive your concealing continents, and ask 
These dreadful summoners grace. 

The storm still continues, and the poor old man is forced along the 
open heath, to take shelter in a vsretched hovel. There the poet has 
laid new incidents, to stamp fresh terror on the imagination, by lodging 
Edgar in it before them. The passions of the old king are so turbulent, 
that he will not be persuaded to take any refuge. When honest Kent 
entreats him to go in, he cries. 

Prithee go in thyself, seek thy own ease ; 
This tempest will not give me leave to ponder 
On things would hurt me more- 
Nay, get thee in ! I'll pray, and then I'll sleep — 
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are. 
That 'bide the pelting of this pitiless storm ! 
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides. 
Your loop'd and vrindow'd raggedness, defend you 
JProm seasons such as these ? — Oh ! I have ta'en 
Too httle care of this ! Take physic, pomp. 
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel. 
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, 
And show the heav'ns more just. — 

The miseries and disorders of Lear and Edgar are then painted with 
such judicious horror, that every imagination must be strongly affected 
by such tempests in reason and nature. I have quoted those passages 
which have the moral reflections in them, since they add solemnity to 
the terror, and alarm at once a variety of passions. 

* Arati Phaenomen. ver. 299. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



31 



and has all but stamped the peculiar character of the 
danger upon his diction."^ So Archilochus in describing a 
wreck, and Demosthenes, where he relates the confusion at 
Athens, upon the arrival of ill news. It was (says he) in 
the evening,'^ &c.f So to speak, they reviewed their forces, 
and cuUing out the flower of them, combined them into 
one body, from which everything trumpery, or undignified, 
or puerile, was excluded. For such expressions, Hke un- 
sightly bits of matter, or fissures, entirely mar the beauty 
of those parts which, when fitly framed together and built 
up coherently, constitute the subHme. 



SECTION XI. 

There is another excellence in close connexion with the 
former, which they call amphfication ; when (for the 
matters and causes on which we ^vrite or debate, admit of 
many beginnings, and pauses in the several divisions of the 
work) subhme ideas, introduced one after another, are 



* The beauty Longinus here commends in Homer, of makmg the 
words correspond with the sense, is one of the most excellent that can 
be found in composition. The many and refined observations of this 
nature in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, are an evidence how exceedingly 
fond the ancients were of it. There should be a style of sound as well 
as of words, but such a style depends on a great command of language, 
and a musical ear. AVe see a great deal of it in Milton, but in Mr. 
Pope it appears to perfection. It would be foUy to quote examples, 
since they can possibly escape none who can read and hear. 

t The whole passage in Demosthenes' oration runs thus : " It was 
evening when a courier brought the news to the magistrates of the 
surprisal of Elatea. Immediately they arose, though in the midst 
of their repast. Some of them hurried away to the Forum, and 
dri^1ng the tradesmen out, set fire to their shops. Others fled to 
advertise the commanders of the army of the news, and to summon the 
public herald. The whole city was fuU of tumult. On the morrow, 
by break of day, the magistrates convene the senate. You, gentlemen, 
obeyed the summons. Before the pubhc council proceeded to debate, 
the people took their seats above. A\Tien the senate were come in, the 
magistrates laid open the reasons of their meeting, and produced the 
courier. He confirmed their report. The herald demanded aloud, 
Who would harangue? Nobody rose up. The herald repeated the 
question several times. In vain : nobody rose up : nobody harangued ; 
though all the commanders of the army were there, though the orators 
were present, though the common voice of our country joined in the 
petition, and demanded an oration for the public safety." 



32 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



made to ascend by a continued gradation.* Now this may 
be done in handling a common place, in aggravating or 
increasing the strength of facts or arguments, or in con- 
structing a climax of actions or passions, for there are ten 
thousand kinds of amplifications. But the orator must 
never forget this maxim, that there cannot be perfec- 
tion, in things however amplified, without a sentiment 
which is truly sublime, unless when we move compassion, 
or make things appear trifling and contemptible. But in 
ail other methods of amphfication, if you take away the 
sublime meaning, you separate, as it were, the soul from the 
body. For no sooner are they deprived of this necessary 
support, but they grow dull and languid, and lose all their 
vigour and nerve. 

WTierein what I have said now difiers from what went 
immediately before ; for my design was then to show how 
much a judicious choice and an artful connexion of striking 
ideas heighten a subject ; and generally in what respect 
sublimity difiers from amplification, must be briefly defined, 
w^ere it only for the sake of perspicuity. 



SECTION XII. 

Now I can by no means approve of the definition which 
writers of rhetoric give of amplification. ^^Amphfication 
(say they) is a form of words aggrandizing the subject." 
For evidently this definition may equally serve for the sub- 
lime, the pathetic, and the appHcation of tropes ; for these 



^ There is a very beautiful amplification in Archbishop TiUotson's 
12th sermon: — 

" 'Tis pleasant to be virtuous and good, because that is to excel many 
others : 'Tis pleasant to grow better, because that is to excel ourselves : 
Nay, 'tis pleasant even to mortify and subdue our lusts, because that is 
^dctory : 'Tis pleasant to command our appetites and passions, and to 
keep them in due order, within the bounds of reason and rehgion, 
because this is empire." 

But no author amplifies in so noble a manner as St. Paul. He rises 
gradually from earth to heaven ; from mortal man to God himself. 
" For all things are yours, vrhether Paul, or Apoilos, or Cephas, or the 
world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come : all are 
voiu-s ; and ye are Christ's ; and Christ is God's." — 1 Cor. iii. 21 — 23. 
*See also Rom. viii. 29, 30. 38, 39. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



33 



also imest discourse ^dth a kind of greatness. In my 
opinion, they differ from one another in that sublimity 
consists in loftiness, but amplification in number also ; for 
which cause the former is often visible in one single 
thought ; the other can only subsist in conjunction with a 
certain quantity and exuberance. 

Amphfication, therefore, to give an outline of it, is a 
full and complete assemblage of the particulars and argu- 
ments appertaining to subjects, giving additional strength 
to and heightening a point that has been already made 
out ; and differing from proof in this, that proof demon- 
strates the matter in debate 

. . . . (There is a chasm in the original here;) his eloquence, 
superlatively rich and exuberant, is spread, like a sea, into 
expansive greatness eveiy way. It is for this cause, I think, 
that the orator, (probably Demosthenes) as being more 
impassioned, exhibits, as might be expected, so much of 
fire, such bursts of flaming indignation : but the other, 
(probably, Plato) naturally stately, magnificent, and lofty, 
is not chargeable, indeed, with a want of fervour, but yet 
has not the condensed and concentrated force of the other. 
And it is in no other respect, my dearest Terentianus, if, 
at least, we Greeks may be permitted to pronounce a 
judgment, that Cicero and Demosthenes differ in their 
subhmity. For the subhme of Demosthenes is, for the 
most part, sudden and concise : that of Cicero, diffuse and 
consecutive. Again, our countryman, by reason of the 
force, nay the rapidity, strength, and impetuosity, with 
which he, in a manner, burns and bears down at once all 
before him, may be likened to a tornado, or a thunderbolt : 
but Cicero, to my thinking, like some wide-spreading con- 
flagration, rolls on devouring on all sides, with fires exhaust- 
less, incessant, and abiding, dealt out, now here, now there, 
from their own central stores, and drawing fresh vigour 
from successive advances. But of these matters you can 
better judge than I can. Now the proper season for applying 
a subhme so intense as that of Demosthenes, is when things 
are to be portrayed in the deepest colours ; where vehement 
passion is to be expressed ; and where it is expedient to 
strike the hearer with astonishment all at once : but the 
season for employing the diffuse kind is when it is required 
to pour a shower of gentler influences upon the hearer. For 
the latter is adapted to the discussion of common places. 



34 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



the generality of perorations, digressions, all narratives and 
panegyrical orations, histories, physiological dissertations, 
and no few other kinds. 



SECTION XIII. 

That Plato, indeed, for I wiU return to him, though his 
eloquence is as the noiseless lapse of a mighty river, is 
nevertheless sublime, you cannot be ignorant, when you 
have read the following specimen in his Republic : They, 
says he, that are unprincipled in the lore of wisdom and 
virtue, and give themselves wholly to feasting and the hke, 
are urged, as it seems, by a downward impulse, and thus 
pass their whole life under a delusion. For they have never 
lifted up their eyes to look on truth, nor been moved by any 
aspirations after her, nor have experienced the taste of durable 
and unpolluted pleasure ; but, like the beasts, with eyes for 
ever downward bent, stooping towards the earth and bend- 
ing over tables, they feed their appetites and lusts ; and to 
obtain a larger share of these things, so insatiable are their 
desires, they kick, and gore, and slay each other with horns 
and hoofs of iron.'^ And this man instructs us, if we would 
but listen to him, that there is also some other way, besides 
those already mentioned, which leads to things subUme. 
And what way is this, and what is its nature ? It is to 
imitate and emulate the great historians and poets of former 
days. And be this, my dearest friend, our fixed and sted- 
fast aim. For many are they that are moved to a divine 
enthusiasm by another's spirit, in the same manner as fame 
records, that when the Pythoness, draws nigh the sacred 
tripod, (where, as they say, the cleft earth breathes an 
inspiring exhalation) she is thereby impregnated with the 
divine influence and forthwith breaks out in strains of pro- 
phecy, according as the Deity inspires her. Thus it is that 
from the sublime geniuses of the ancients certain effluvia are 
wafted to the souls of those that emulate them, as from the 
sacred caverns ; by whose inspiration, even such as are not 
over-gifted of Phoebus, catch enthusiasm from the sublimi- 
ties of others. Was Herodotus the only devoted imitator 
of Homer ? Stesichorus was so before him ; and so was 
Archilochus ; but more than aU of them, Plato, who, from 



LONGINL'S OX THE SUBLIME. 



35 



the famed Homenc fountain, has drawn water by ten thou- 
sand by- streams to irrigate his own genius. And, perhaps, it 
were needful for me to point out instances, had not Ammo- 
nius and his disciples given a classified list of them. Nor 
is this plagiarism ; but to take a hint from models of poetic 
fiction or'works of art is as defensible as to copygoodmanners. 
Neither do I think that Plato would have displayed so much 
vigour in dehvering his philosophical doctrines, and so often 
have soared to the matter and diction of poetiy, had he not 
strenuously entered the Hsts, even with Homer, and disputed 
the palm with him, like some undistinguished champion 
that matches himself with one who has abeady engrossed 
the admiration of the world. The attack was perhaps too 
rash, the opposition perhaps had too much the air of enmity, 
but yet it coidd not fail of some advantage ; for, as Hesiod 
says. 

Such brave conteution works the good of men.'^ 

And, assmTcQy, glorious are the efibrts, worthy our 
highest ambition, the crown in this contest for pre-eminence 
of fame, wherein even to be worsted by the heroes of former 
days, is unattended with dishonour. 



SECTION XIV. 

Wherefore whenever we too are engaged in a work which 
requires grandeur of style and exalted sentiments, it 
were good to raise in ourselves such reflections as these ? 
— How in this matter would Homer, as the case may be, 
or Plato, or Demosthenes, have raised their thoughts ? 
Or if it be historical — ^how would Thucydides ? For these 
persons, being set before us, and appearing, as it were, in 
bright array, as patterns for our imitation, will in some 
degree raise our souls to the standard we have pictured to 
our imaginations. It will be yet of greater use, if to the 
preceding reflections we add these — ^What would Homer or 
Demosthenes have thought of this piece ? or how would 
they have been afi"ected by it ? For of a truth it is no Hght 
contest we engage in, when we set before us such a tribunal 
and such an auditory, to adjudicate upon our own perform- 



* Hesiod. in operihus et diebus, v. 24. 

! 

1 



36 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



ances ; and are possessed with the idea, though but in ima- 
gination, that we are submitting our writings to the scrutiny 
of such distinguished characters, who are at once both our 
judges and witnesses. There is yet another motive which 
may yield still more powerful incitements, if we ask our- 
selves — ^What would all posterity think of me, if they heard 
these writings of mine recited ? But if any one, in the 
moments of composing, should apprehend that his perform- 
ance may not be able to survive him and endure, the con- 
ceptions of a soul so affected must needs be crude and 
imperfect, hke things born out of due season, so that they 
can never attain to the praise of future ages. 



SECTION XV. 

Visions, moreover, which by some are called images, con- 
tribute very much, dear youth, to the weight, magnificence, 
and effect of compositions. The name of image is given in 
common to any idea, howsoever presented to the mind, which 
is communicable to others by discourse ; but a more particular 
sense of it has now prevailed : " When the imagination is 
so warmed and affected, that you seem to behold yourself 
the very things you are describing, and to display them to 
the life before the eyes of an audience, it is called an 
image." 

You cannot be ignorant that rhetorical and poetical 
images have a different intent. That the design of a poeti- 
cal image is to set the subject palpably before the eyes ; of 
a rhetorical to strike the imagination. However, both 
require that the mind should be powerfully moved to pro- 
duce them. 

Pity thy oifspring, mother, nor provoke 
Those vengeful furies to torment thy son.* 



* Virgil refers to this passage in his fourth ^Eneid, v. 470. 

Aut Agamemnonius scenis agitatus Orestes, 
Armatam facibus matrem et serpentihus atris 
Cum fugit, ultricesque sedent in hmine Dirse. 

Or mad Orestes when his mother's ghost 

Full in his face infernal torches toss'd, 

And shook her snaky locks : he shuns the sight, 

Flies o'er the stage,, surpris'd with mortal fright, 

The furies guard the door and intercept the flight. — Drydm. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



37 



What horrid sights ! how glare their bloody eyes ! 
How testing snakes curl round their Tenom'd heads ! 
In deadly wrath the hissing monsters rise, 
Forward they spring, daii: out, and leap around me, — 

Euripid. Orestes^ ver. 255. 

And again : 

Alas !— she'll kill me !— whither shall I fly ?— 

Id, Iphigm, Taur. ver. 408. 

" There is not (says Mr. Addison, Spectator, No. 421,) a sight 
in nature so horrif\'ing as that of a distracted person, when his 
imagination is troubled, and his whole soul disordered and confused : 
Babylon in rains is not so melancholy a spectacle." 

The distraction of Orestes, after the murder of his mother, is a fine 
representation in Euripides, because it is natural. The consciousness 
of what he has done is uppermost in his thoughts, disorders his fancy, 
and confounds his reason. He is strongly apprehensive of Divine ven- 
geance, and the violence of his fears places the avenging furies before 
his eyes. \Yhenever the mind is harassed by the stings of conscience, 
or the horrors of guilt, the senses are liable to infinite delusions, 
and startle at hideous imaginary monsters. The poet, who can touch 
such incidents \\ith happy dexterit\^, and paint such images of con- 
sternation, will infallibly work on the minds of others. This is what 
Longinus commends in Euripides ; and here it must be added, that no 
poet in this branch of writing can enter into a parallel with Shakspeare. 

^ATien Macbeth is preparing for the murder of Duncan, his imagina- 
tion is big ^Ith the attempt, and is quite upon the rack. ^Yithin, his 
soul is dismayed \\ith the horror of so black an enterprise ; and ever}^ 
thing without looks dismal and affrighting. His eyes rebel against 
his reason, and make him start at images that have no reahty. — 

Is this a dagger which I see before me. 

The handle tow'rd my hand ? come, let me clutch thee ! 

I have thee not — and yet I see thee still. 

He then endeavours to summon his reason to his aid, and convince 
himself that it is a mere chimera ; but in vain, the terror stamped ou 
his imagination wiU not be shaken otf : 

I see thee yet, in form as palpable 
As this which now I draw. 

Here he makes a new attempt to reason himself out of the delusion, 
but it is quite too strong : — 

I see thee stiU, 
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, 
Which was not so before. There's no such thing. 

The delusion is described in so skilful a manner, that the audience 
cannot but share the consternation, and start at the visionary dagger. 

The genius of the poet will appear more surprising, if we consider 
how the horror is continually worked up, by the method in which the 
perpetration of the murder is represented. The contrast between 

E 



38 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



Here tlie poet Mmself saw the furies, and has well nigh 
compelled his audience to see what his imagination pre- 
sented to him. Euripides indeed has laboured very much 
to give full effect to the two passions of madness and love, 
and has succeeded much better in these, I think, than 
in any other; not that he wants confidence to attempt 
images of a difPerent kind. For though his genius was not 
naturally great, yet in many instances he even forced it up 
to the true spirit of tragedy ; and that he may always rise 
where his subject demands it, (to borrow an allusion from 
the poet.) — Iliad. xK.ver. 170. 

Lash'd by his tail his heaving sides incite 
His courage, and provoke himself for fight. 

The foregoing assertion is evident from that passage, 
where Sol delivers the reins of his chariot to Phaeton : 

Drive on, but cautious shun the Lybian air ; 
That hot unmoisten'd region of the sky 
Will drop thy chariot.* — Eurip. Fragment. 



Macbeth and his wife is justly characterized, by the hard-hearted 
villany of the one, and the qualms of remorse in the other. The least 
noise, the very sound of their own voices, is shocking and frightful to 
both : 

Hark ! peace ! 
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bell-man, 
Which gives the stern'st good-night — ^he is about it. — 
And again, immediately after, 

Alack ! I am afraid they have awak'd. 
And 'tis not done t th' attempt, and not the deed, 
Confounds us. — Hark ! — I laid their daggers ready, 
He could not miss them. 

The best way to commend it, as it deserves, would be to quote 
the whole scene. The fact is represented in the same affecting horror 
as would rise in the mind at sight of the actual commission. Every 
shigle image seems reality, and alarms the soul. They seize the whole 
attention, stiffen and benumb the sense, the very blood cm-dies and 
runs cold, through the strongest abhorrence and detestation of the 
crime. 

* This passage, in all probability, is taken from a tragedy of Euripides, 
named Phaeton, which is entirely lost. Ovid had certainly an eye to 
it in his Met. 1. ii. when he puts these lines into the mouth of Phoebus, 
resigning the chariot of the sun to Phaeton :— 

Zonarumque trium contentus fine, polumque 
Effugit australem, junctamque aquilonibus arcton : 
I Hac sit iter : manifesta rotse vestigia cernes. 

Utque ferant sequos et coelum et terra calores, 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



3^ 



And a little after. 

Thence let the Pleiads point thy wary course. 
Thus spake the god. Th' impatient youth with haste 
Snatches the reigns, and vaults into the seat. 
He starts ; the coursers, whom the lashing whip 
Excites, outstrip the winds, and whiii the car 
High through the any void. Behind, the sire, 
Borne on his planetary steed, pursues 
With eye intent, and warns him with his voice, 
Drive there ! — now here ! — here I turn the chariot hei-e ! — 

Id. Frag, 

Now, would you not say, that the soul of the poet mounts 
the chariot along with the rider, and that, borne on wings 
as well as the steeds, it shared the danger of the enterprise I 
For, had it not been hurried on \vith the same rapidity as 
those creatures of heaven, it could never have conceived so 
grand an image of it. There are some parallel images in 
his Cassandra 

Ye martial Trojans, &c, 

^schylus has made bold attempts in noble and truly 
heroic images : as, in one of his tragedies^ the seven com- 

Nec preme, nec summum molire per sethera cuiTum. 
Altius egressus, coelestia tecta cremabis; 
Inferius terras ; medio tutissimus ibis. 

Drive 'em not on directly through the skies, 

But where the Zodiac's winding circle lies, 

Along the midmost zone ; but sally forth, 

Nor to the distant south, nor stormy north, 

The horses' hoofs a beaten track will show : 

But neither mount too high, nor sink too low ; 

That no new fires or heav'n or earth infest ; 

Keep the mid-way, the middle way is best. — Addison, 

The subhmity which Ovid here borrov^'ed from Euripides he has 
diminished, almost vitiated, by flourishes. A subhmer image can 
no where be found than in the song of Deborah, after Sisera's defeat, 
(Judges, V. 28,) where the vain-glorious boasts of Sisera's mother, 
when expecting his return, and, as she was confident, his victorious 
return, are described : 

The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried tlirough 
the lattice. Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarrj* the 
wheels of his chariots ? Her wise ladies answered her ; yea, she 
returned answer to herself : Have they not sped ? have they not dirided 
the prey ? to ever\^ man a damsel or two ; to Sisera a prey of divers 
colours, a prey of divers coloui's of needle-work, of divers colours 
or needle-work on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the 
spoil ?" — Pearce. 

* The Cassandra of Euripides is now entirely lost. 



40 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



manders against Thebes, without betraying the least sign 
of pity or regret, bind themselves by oath not to survive 
Eteocies : — 

The seven, a warlike leader each in chief, 
Stood round ; and o'er the brazen shield they slew 
A sullen bull ; then plunging deep their hands 
Into the foaming gore, with oaths invok'd 
Mars, and Enyo, and blood-thirsting terror.* 

Sometimes, indeed, the thoughts of this author are unpo- 
lished and like a fleece undressed and rough, and yet Euri- 
pides, from the impulse of emulation, ventiu-es even on the 
same perilous extremes. In ^schylus, the palace of Lycur- 
gus is represented as being aflected by the sudden appear- 
ance of Bacchus in a strange and startling manner : 

The frantic dome and roaring roofs convuls'd, 
Reel to and fro, instinct with rage divine. 

Euripides has expressed the same idea differently, soften- 
ing down its asperity : 



* The following image in Milton is great and dreadful. The fallen 
angels, fired by the speech of their leader, are too violent to yield to his 
proposal in words, but assent in a manner that at once displays the 
art of the poet, gives the reader a terrible idea of the fallen angels, and 
imprints a dread and horror on the mind : 

He spake ; and to confirm his words, out flew 
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs 
Of mighty cherubim : the sudden blaze 
Far round illumin'd hell ; highly they rag'd 
Against the High'st, and fierce with grasped arms 
Clash'd on their sounding shields the din of war, 
Hurling defiance tow'rd the vault of heav'n. 

How vehemently does the fury of Northumberland exert itself in 
Shakspeare, when he hears of the death of his son Hotspur. The rage 
and distraction of the surviving father shows how important the son 
was in his opinion. Nothing must be, now he is not : nature itself 
must fall with Percy. His grief renders him frantic, his anger desperate : 

Let heav'n kiss earth ! now let not nature's hand 
Keep the wild flood confin'd : let order die, 
And let this world no longer be a stage 
To feed contention in a ling'ring act : 
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain 
Reign in all bosoms, that each heart being set 
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end, 
And darkness be the burier of the dead. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



41 



The vocal mount in agitation shakes, 

And echoes back the BacchanaUan cries,* — Eurip. Bacchaey v. 725. 
Sophocles lias succeeded nobly in his images, where he 
describes his (Edipus dying, and burying himself in the 
midst of a portentous tempest ; and in the departure of the 
Grecian fleet, and on the ghost of Achilles appearing upon 
his tomb when the Greeks were setting sail.-f But I know 
not whether any one has embodied that apparition more 

* Tollius is of opinion, that Longinus blames neither the thought of 
Euripides nor ^schylus, but only the word ^aKx^vei, which, he says, 
has not so much sweetness, nor raises so nice an idea, as the word 
(Tv/jL^uKx^v^L. Dr. Pearce thinks yEsehyius is censured for making the 
palace instinct with Bacchanahan fury, to which Euripides has given 
a softer and sweeter turn, by making the mountain only reflect the cries 
of the Bacchanals. 

There is a daring image, mth an expression of a harsh sound, on 
account of its antiquity, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, which may parallel 
that of iEschylus : 

She foul blasphemous speeches forth did cast, 

And bitter curses horrible to tell ; 

That ev'n the temple wherein she was plac'd, 

Did quake to hear, and nigh asunder brast. 

Milton shows a greater boldness of fiction than either Euripides or 
^schylus, and tempers it with the utmost propriety, when, at Adam's 
eating the forbidden fruit. 

Earth trembled from her entrails, as again 

In pangs, and nature gave a second groan ; 

Sky lower'd, and mutt'ring thunder some sad drops 

Wept, at completing of the mortal sin. 

t The tragedy of Sophocles, where this apparition is described, is 
entirely lost. Dr. Pearce observes, that there is an unhappy imitation 
of it in the beginning of Seneca's Troades ; and another in Grid. Metam. 
lib. xiii. 441, neat \\ithout spirit, and elegant Tvithout grandeur. 

Ghosts are very frequent in English tragedies ; but ghosts, as well 
as fairies, seem to be the peculiar pro\ince of Shakspeare. In such 
circles none but he could move with dignity. That in Hamlet is intro- 
duced with the utmost solemnity, awful throughout, and majestic. At 
the appearance of Banquo in Macbeth (Act iii. Sc. 5,) the images are 
set off in the strongest expression, and strike the imagination with high 
degrees of horror, which is supported with surprising art through the 
whole scene. 

There is a fine touch of this nature in Job iv. 13, In thoughts from 
the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came 
upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake : then a 
spirit passed before my face : the hair of my flesh stood up. It stood 
still, but I could not discern the form thereof : an image — before mine 
eyes — silence — and I heard a voice, — Shall mortal man be more just 
than God &c. &c. 

E 2 



42 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



vividly than Simonides. To quote all these instances at 
large would be endless. 

But images in poetry are pushed to a fabulous excess, as I 
said, and passing the bounds of probability : whereas in 
oratory, the most beautiful are such as are most forcible 
and truthful. It is also a grave offence, and an absurd 
departure from propriety, when the fictions of oratory are 
of a poetical and fabulous character, and run into absolute 
impossibilities. Even as in this our day, the most accom- 
plished orators see furies, as if they were tragic poets, and 
with all their genius never discover, that when Orestes 
exclaims — {Orestes v. 264,) 

Loose me, thou fury, let me go, tormentress : 
Close you embrace, to plunge me headlong down 
Into th' abyss of Tartarus — 

he fancies these things, because he is mad. 

What, then, is the true use of images in oratory ? They 
are, perhaps, capable, in many ways, of adding both nerve 
and passion to our speeches, but also, if the images be 
skilfully blended with the proofs and descriptions, they not 
only persuade, but subdue an audience. If any one (says 
Demosthenes) should hear a sudden outcry before the 
tribunal, whilst another brings the news that the prison is 
burst open and the captives escaped, no man, either young 
or old, would be of so abject a spirit as to refuse his utmost 
assistance. But if another should stand forth and say, this 
man is the author of these disorders, the accused would be 
condemned without even a hearing." 

So Hyperides, when he was accused of passing an illegal 
decree, for giving liberty to slaves, after the defeat of 
Chseronea; ''It was not an orator," said he, ''that made 
this decree, but the battle of Chseronea." For at the same time 
that he argues the point in a matter of fact way, he inter- 
mixes an image of the battle, and, by that stroke of art, has 
passed the bounds of mere persuasion. Now it is natural 
to us, on all subjects of this sort, to hearken to that which 
is the more forcible ; whence it is, that we are drawn 
off from the proof to the astounding effect of the image, in 
the brightness of whose rays the argumentative portion 
is obscured. And that our minds are thus affected is not to 
be wondered at, since, when two things are placed together, 
the stronger attracts to itself the virtue and efficacy of the 
weaker. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



43 



These obsei-vations will, I fancy, be sufficient, concerning 
that sublime which belongs to the sense, and takes its rise 
either from elevation of thought, imitation, or images. 



PART 11. 

The Pathetic, which the author, sect. viii. laid down for 
the second source of the subhme, is omitted here, because 
it was reserved for a distinct treatise. — See sect, xhv. T\dth 
the note. 



PART III. 



SECTION XVL 

The topic that comes next in order, is that of figures ; for 
these, when judiciously used, as I said, form no trivial part 
of greatness. But since it would be tedious, or rather 
infinite labour, exactly to describe all the species of them, 
I will carefully consider a few of those which contribute 
most to elevation of style, with the view of establishing my 
proposition. 

Demosthenes is producing proofs of his upright be- 
haviour as a pubhc servant. Now, what was the most 
natural method of doing this? ''You were not in the 
wrong, Athenians, when you courageously ventured your 
lives in fighting for the liberty and safety of Greece ; and of 
this you have domestic examples. For neither were they in 
the wrong who fought at Marathon, who fought at Salamis, 
who fought at Platsese." But when, filled, as it were, with 
sudden inspiration of the Deity, and hke one possessed, he 
thunders out that oath, by the champions of Greece ; ''You 
were not in the wrong, no, you could not be, I swear, by 
them that jeoparded their Hves for their country in the field 
of Marathon," he seems, by this one figure of swearing, 
which, in this case, I call an apostrophe, to have enrolled 
their ancestors among the gods ; while suggesting to them, 
that they ought to swear by persons, who fell so gloriously, 
as by so many gods ; to have inspired his judges with the 
generous sentiments of those devoted patriots ; to have 
changed what was naturally a proof, into an appeal tran- 



44 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



scendantly sublime and affecting, aided by tbe powerful 
evidence of oaths of a novel and most sublime character 
and, at the same time, to have instilled a balm into their 
minds, which heals every painful reflection, and assuages 
the smart of misfortune ; so that, inspirited by his encomiums, 
they begin to think with no less pride of the engagement 
with Philip, than of the trophies earned at Marathon 
and Salamis. In short, by the application of this figure, he 
was thus in various ways enabled to carry his hearers along 
with him, whether they would or not. 

And yet some insinuate, that the seeds of this oath are to 
be found in these lines of Eupohs :f — 

No ! by my laurels earned at Marathon, 
They shall not glory in my discontent. 

But the grandeur depends not on the bare application of 
an oath, but applying it in the proper place, in a pertinent 
manner, at a right juncture, and for sufficient cause. J Yet in 
Eupohs there is nothing but an oath, and that addressed to 
the Athenians, when they were flushed with conquest, and 
did not require consolation. Besides, the poet did not 
swear by heroes, having first deified them to make his 
audience deem worthily of such virtue ; but passed over 
those illustrious souls, who ventured their lives for their 
country, to swear by an inanimate object, the battle. In 
Demosthenes, the oath is addressed to the vanquished, to 
the end that the defeat of Chseronea may be no longer 
regarded by the Athenians as a misfortune. The same 
thing is at once a demonstration that they had done their 
duty, an illustrious example, an oath for confirmation, 
an encomium, and an exhortation. And w^hereas this 



* The observations on this oath are judicious and solid. But there is 
one infinitely more solemn and awful in Jeremiah xxii. 5. 

" But if ye will not hear these words, I swear by myself, saith the 
Lord, that this house shall become a desolation." — See Genesis xxii. 16. 
and Hebrews vi. 13. 

fEupolis was an Athenian witer of comedy, of whom nothing 
remains at present, but the renown of his name. — Pearce. 

X This judgment is admirable, and Longinus alone says more than all 
the WTiters on rhetoric that ever examined this passage of Demo- 
sthenes. Quintilian, indeed, was very sensible of the ridiculousness of 
using oaths, if they were not applied as happily as the orator has 
applied them ; but he has not at the same time laid open the defects, 
which Longinus evidently discovers, in a bare examination of this oath 
in Eupohs. — Dacier. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



45 



objection occurred to tlie orator : ''You speak of a defeat 
that took place under your administration, and then you 
swear by those celebrated victories;" he, therefore, regulates 
all he says by the strictest rules of art, and is scrupulously 
guarded also in the terms he employs ; thus leaving an 
example to posterity, that sobriety must be observed even 
in the transports of enthusiasm. He says, '' Those of your 
ancestors, who bravely exposed themselves in the plains of 
Marathon, those who were in the naval engagements near 
Salamis and Artemisium, and those who faced the foe 
at Plataeee." Nowhere has he said, '' Those that conquered," 
but has, in all cases, industriously suppressed the men- 
tion of the events of those battles, because they were 
successful, and opposite to that of Chseronea. For which 
cause, also, he anticipates the objections of the hearer, 
by immediately subjoining, ''all of whom, iEschines, the 
city honoured with a public funeral, and not those only who 
were victorious." 



SECTION XVIL 

There is one result of my speculations, my friend, which 
I ought not to omit here ; I Tvdll state it vnth all brevity : 
figures naturally impart assistance to, and, on the other 
hand, receive wonderful aid from subHme sentiments. And 
I will now show where, and in what manner, this is done. 

A too elaborate and studied application of figures, is 
pecuKarly calculated to awaken suspicion, and induce an 
opinion of sinister design, fraud, and sophistry, especially 
when, in pleading, we speak before a judge, from whose 
sentence there Hes no appeal ; and much more, if before a 
tyrant, a monarch, or any one in high authority. For he grows 
angry immediately, if he thinks he is being cajoled by the 
artifices of a rhetorician, as if he had no more sense than a 
child ; and regarding the attempt to impose upon him as an 
affront to his understanding, sometimes he becomes alto- 
gether infuriated ; and though perhaps he may suppress his 
wrath, and stifle his resentment for the present, yet he 
is averse, nay even deaf, to the most plausible and per- 
suasive arguments that can be alleged. AAHierefore, a figure 
then seems most dexterously applied, when it cannot be 
discerned that it is a figure. 



46 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



Therefore, sublimity and passion form an admirable 
antidote and remedy for the suspicion that attends on the 
use of figures ; and if perchance the aid of art is called 
in for deceptive purposes, still it merges itself in the sub- 
limity and pathos that accompany it. I cannot produce a 
better example to confirm this assertion, than the preceding 
from Demosthenes: "I swear by those heroic souls," &c. 
For in what has the orator here concealed the figure ? 
Plainly, in nothing but the light he has poured around 
it. For it were no inapt comparison if I were to say, that 
as the lesser lights of heaven are paled in the surrounding 
effulgence of the sun, so the artifices of rhetoric become 
invisible amidst the splendour of sublime thoughts. And 
something not unlike this takes place in painting : for when 
several colours of light and shade are laid side by side upon 
the same surface, those of light seem to meet the eyes first, 
and not only to stand out above the rest, but to be much 
nearer. And thus it is that the sublime and pathetic, in 
language, since they are brought nearer to our souls 
by reason both of an affinity, founded in the principles of 
our nature, and their own superlative lustre, ahvays out- 
shine figures, throw into the shade their artificial cha- 
racter, and keep them in a kind of concealment. 



SECTION XVITI. 

What shall I say of questions, which are answ^ered by a 
simple affirmation or negation, and interrogations ? Is 
not discourse which requires a lengthened reply rendered 
far more nervous, impressive, and pointed, by the very 
character of the figures employed?"^ ^^Tell me," says 

* Deborah's words, in the person of Sisera's mother, instanced above 
on another occasion, are also a noble example of the use of interro- 
gations. Nor can I in this place pass by a passage in holy Scripture ; 
I mean the words of Christ, in this figure of self-interrogation and 
answer : AMiat went ye out in the wilderness to see ? a reed shaken 
with the wind ? But what went ye out for to see ? a man clothed in 
soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in king's 
houses. But what went ye out for to see ? a prophet ? yea, I say unto 
you, and more than a prophet." Matt. xi. 7, 9. — Pearce. 

That the sense receives strength, as well as beauty, from this figure, 
is no where so visible as in the poetical and prophetical parts of Scrip- 
ture. Numberless instances might be easily adduced; and we are 
puzzled how to pitch on any in particular, amidst so fine a variety, lest 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



47 



Demosthenes/ would you go about the city, and demand 
what news ? What greater news can there be, than that a 
Macedonian enslaves the Athenians, and lords it over 
Greece ? Is Phihp dead ? No : but he is sick. Now what 
difference does it make to you ? for if any thing should 
happen to this man, you yourselves will soon raise up 
another Phihp?"* And again, he says, '^Let us sail 
for Macedonia. Aye, but where shall we land, asked some 
one ?f The war itself will discover what is rotten in the 
state of Philip. This, uttered simply, and without interro- 
gation, would have been altogether beneath the subject. 
But as it is, the spirited and rapid alternation of question 
and answer, and the anticipatory rephes to his own demands, 
as if they were another's, not only render his oration more 
subhme and lofty by this figurative form of speech, but more 
convincing. For the pathetic then works most powerfully 



tbe choice might give room to call our judgment in question, for taking 
no notice of others, that perhaps are more remarkable. 

Any reader will observe, that there is a poetical air in the predictions 
of Balaam in the 23rd chapter of Numbers, and that there is particularly 
an uncommon grandeur in ver. 19. 

" God is not a man, that he should lie, neither the son of man, that 
he should repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it ? or, hath 
he spoken, and shall he not make it good ? " 

AYhat is the cause of this grandeur will immediately be seen, if the 
sense be preserved, and the words thrown out of interrogation : 

" God is not a man, that he should he, neither the son of man, that 
he should repent. AYhat he has said, he mil do ; and what he 
has spoken, he will make good." 

The difference is so visible, that it is needless to enlarge upon it. 

How artfully does St. Paid, in Acts xxvi. transfer his discom'se from 
Festus to Agrippa. In ver. 26, he speaks of him in the third person. 
The king (says he) knoweth of these things, before whom I also 

speak freely " Then, in the following, he turns short upon him : — 

''King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets ?" and immediately after 
answers his own questions, '' I know that thou believest.'' The 
smoothest eloquence, the most insinuating complaisance, could never 
have made such impression on Agrippa, as this unexpected and pathetic 
address. 

To these instances may be added the whole 38th chap, of Job ; where 
we behold the Almighty Creator expostulating with his creature, 
in terms which express at once the majesty and perfection of the one, 
the meanness and frailty of the other. There we see how vastly useful 
the figure of interrogation is, in giving us a lofty idea of the Deity, 
^vhiist every question awes us into silence, and inspires a sense of our 
insufficiencv. 

* Demosth. Phihp. 1. t l^^id. 



48 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



upon us, when it appears not to be the effect of the speaker's 
art, but to flow naturally out of the occasion. And this 
questioning and answering one's self seems to indicate the 
moments of passion. For when people are questioned by 
others they are excited, and on the spur of the moment 
answer the demands put to them with earnestness and 
the sincerity of truth. Much in the same way this figure 
of question and answer imposes upon the hearer, by leading 
him to a belief, that those things, which are in fact 
premeditated, have been called forth, and are uttered on the 
impulse of the occasion. — [What foUows here is the begin- 
ning of a sentence now maimed and imperfect, but it is 
evident, from the few words yet remaining, that the author 
was going to add another instance of the use of this figure 
in a passage from Herodotus, which, he says, was con- 
sidered transcendently subhme.] ^ ^ ^ 



SECTION XIX. 

^ ^ jic [^Xhe beginning of this section is 

lost, but the sense is easily supplied from what immediately 
follows.] Another great help in attaining grandeur, is 
banishing the copulatives at a proper season. For sentences, 
artfully divested of conjunctions, drop smoothly down, and 
the periods are, as it were, poured along in such a manner, 
that they well nigh outstrip the very speaker. ^'Then 
(says Xenophon) closing their shields together, they were 
pushed, they fought, they slew, they were slain." So 
Eurylochus in Homer : — Od. xi. ver. 251. 

We went, Ulysses ! (such was thy command) 
Through the lone thicket, and the desert land ; 
A palace in a woody vale we found. 

Brown with dark forests, and with shades around, &c. — Pope. 



* " The want of connexion draws things into a lesser compass, and 
adds greater spirit and emotion. — For the more rays are collected in a 
point, the more vigorous is the flame. Hence there is yet greater 
emphasis, when the rout of an army is shown in the same contracted 
manner, as in the 24th of the Odyssey, 1. 610, vi^hich has some resem- 
blance to Sallust's description of the same thing with his usual concise- 
ness, in these four words only, sequi, fugere^ occidi, capi^ — Essay on 
the Odyssey J p. 2d, 113. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



49 



For the words thus dissevered from one another, and yet 
equally hurried along, give a hvely representation of the 
mental agony which at once restrains and accelerates his 
words. Such effects Homer has produced by rejecting the 
conjunctions. 



SECTION XX. 

But the most subhmely moving effect is produced by 
bringing together a number of figures when two or three 
of them, as if mutually associated in a class, render to each 
other contributions of strength, persuasiveness, and orna- 
ment ; as in that passage of Demosthenes' oration against 
Midias, where the conjunctions are removed at the same time 
that there are repetitions and vivid descriptions interwoven. 

There are several things in the gesture, look, voice, of 
him who strikes another, which it is impossible for the 



Voltaire has endeavoured to show the hurry and confusion of a 
battle, in the same manner, in the Henriade. Chant, 6. 

Francois, Anglois* LoiTains, qu la fureur assemble, 
Avan9oient, combattoient, frappoient, moiiroient ensemble. 

The huiTv and distraction of Dido's spirits, at ^Eneas's departure, is 
visible from the abrupt and precipitate manner in which she commands 
her servants to endeavour to stop him : 

Ite, 

Ferte citi flammas, date vela, impeUite remos. — jEneid. ii. 

Haste, haul my galleys out ; pursue the foe ; 

Bring flaming brands, set sail, and quickly row. — Dryden. 

Hellenic. Lib. iv. and Orat. de Agesil. 

* Amongst the various and beautiful instances of an assemblage of 
figures, which may be produced, and which so frequently occur in the 
best writings, one, I beheve, has hitherto not been taken notice of ; I 
mean the four last verses of the 24th Psalm. 

" Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting 
doors, and the lung of gloiy shall come in. Who is the King of gloiy ? 
The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battles. Lift up your 
heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King 
of glory shall come in. Who is the King of glory ? The Lord of hosts : 
he is the King of glory !" 

There are innumerable instances of this kind in the poetical parts of 
Scripture, particularly in the Song of Deborah (Judges, chap, v.) and 
the Lamentation of David over Saul and Jonathan, (2 Samuel, chap, i.) 
There is scarce one thought in them, which is not figured ; nor one 
figure which is not beautiM. 

F 



50) 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



sufferer to convey." And then, tliat his oration might not 
keep going on in the same uniform manner, (for order 
indicates a mind unmoved, but passion is irregular and 
tumultuous, since it is a violent motion and agitation of 
the soul,) he passes immediately to new asyndetons and 

repetitions in the gesture, in the look, in the voice — 

when like a ruffian, when like an enemy, when with his 
knuckles, when on the face." By these means, the orator 
deals with the judges, just as the assailant did with his 
victim : he attacks their understandings with reiterated 
violence. Then, again, he charges them afresh with the 
force of a hurricane : ^^When with his fist, when on the 
face." — These things affect, these things madden men 
unused to indignities. No man, in giving a recital of these 
tilings, can convey an adequate idea of their heinousness." 
He preserves, then, throughout the character of the figures, 
iiam-ety, that which omits the conjunctions, and that of 
reposition, though interchanging them continually. And 
thus, with him, even order wears the semblance of confusion, 
and, conversely, disorder is investedwith a certain regularity^ 



SECTION XXI. 

To illustrate the foregoing observation, let us, if you wilL 
imitate the school of Isocrates, and insert the copulatives in 
tliis passage ; which will then stand thus : Nor indeed 
should it be omitted, that he who commits violence on 
another, may do many things, &c. — -first in. gesture, d^ndithen 
in countenance, and thirdly in his very voice, which," &c. 
And if you proceed thus in changing the form of the 
language, you will find, that, by smoothing the passage 
by means of copulatives, what was before overpoweringly, 
impetuously pathetic, falls tamely upon the ear, and at 
once loses all its fire. To couple the limbs of racers, is to 

* No v/riter ever made a less use of copulatives than St. Paul. His 
thoughts poured in so fast upon him, that he had no leisure to knit 
tiiem together, by the help of particles ; but he has by that means 
given them weight, spirit, energy, and strong significance. An instance 
of it may be seen in 2 Corinth, chap. vi. From ver. 4, to 10, is but 
one sentence, of near thirty different members, which are all detached 
from one another ; and if the copulatives be inserted after the Isocra- 
tean manner, the strength wall be quite impaired, and the sedate 
grandeiu* of tlie whole grow fat and heavy. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



51 



deprive them of motion. In like manner, the pathetic 
scorns to be fettered by copulatives, and other additions ; 
for they prevent its having free course, and flying to the 
mark hke a missile discharged from some engine. 



SECTION XXII. 

Hyperbatons, also, are to be ranked in the same class. 
An hyperbaton"^ is a transposing of vrords or thoughts out 
of their natural and grammatical order, and is, as it were, an 
express image and infallible token of vehement passion. f 
For as when men are really impelled by anger, or fear, 
or indignation, or jealousy, or any other passion, for they 
are numberless, and cannot be reckoned up, they are for 
ever getting wrong, and when they have proposed one thing, 
continually running off into another, absurdly obtiading 
some intermediate matter ; and then again, coming i^i^dnd 
to their original subject, are ever and anon pulled back 
suddenly from conflicting feehngs, now this wav, now that, 
as if the sport of a shifting wind ; incessantly chopping and 
changing their expressions, their ideas, and the order of 

* Virgil is very happy in his apphcation of this figure. 

Moriamur, et in media arma ruamus. — ^Eneid. ii. v. 348. 
And again, 

Me, me, adsum qui feci, in me convertite ferrum. — Id. Lx. v. 427. 

In both these instances, the words are removed out of their right 
order into an irregular disposition, which is a natural consequence of 
perturbation in the mind. — Pearce. 

There is a fine h}-perbaton in the 5th book of Paradise Lost, 

Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, 
With charm of earhest birds : pleasant the sun, 
WTien first on this dehghtful land he spreads 
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flow'r, 
Ghst'ring with dew ; fragrant the fertile earth 
After soft show'rs: and sweet the coming on 
Of grateful evening mild : &c. 
t Longinus here, in explaining the nature of the h^^perbaton, and 
again in the close of the section, has made use of an hyperbaton, or 
(to speak more truly) of a certain confused and more extensive compass 
of a sentence. Whether he did this by accident, or design, I cannot 
determine ; though Le Fe\Te thinks it a piece of art in the autlior, in 
order to adapt the diction to the subject. — Pearce. 



52 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



their natural connexion, in all sorts of ways, to suit their 
ever-varying purpose : so the best writers endeavour to imi- 
tate the truth of nature's doings, by means of transposi- 
tions.'^ For art is then perfect, when she passes for nature ; 
but nature, on the other hand, succeeds in her object, when 
the art that regulates her movements is kept out of sight. 

In Herodotus, (vi. 11.) the speech of Dionysius, the 
Phocean, is an example of this transposition : For our 
affairs, says he, are balanced on a razor's edge, men of 
Ionia, now is the crisis of our fate, whether to be free or 
slaves, yea, runaway slaves, the most abject and degraded. 
Now, then, if you make up your minds to endure hardness, 
you will indeed have to encounter toil for the present, but 
you wiU be able to vanquish the enemy." The natural 
order was this : ^^0 lonians, now is the time to submit to 
toil and labour, for our affairs are balanced on a razor's 



* This fine remark may be illustrated by a celebrated passage in 
Sliakspeare's Hamlet, where the poet's art has hit off the strongest and 
most exact resemblance of natm-e. The behaviour of his mother makes 
such impression on the young prince, that his mind is big with abhor- 
rence of it, but expressions fail him. He begins abruptly; but as 
reflections crowd thick upon him, he runs off into commendations of 
his father. Some time after, his thoughts tm^n again on that action of 
his mother, which had raised his resentments, but he only touches it, 
and flies off again. In short, he takes up nineteen Mnes in telling us, 
that his mother married again in less than two months after her 
husband's death : — 

But two months dead ! nay, not so much, not two — 

So excellent a king, that was to this 

Hyperion to a satyr: so lo\dng to my mother, 

That he permitted not the winds of heav'n 

Visit her face too roughly ! Heav'n and earth ! 

Must I remember ? — why, she would hang on him, 

As if increase of appetite had grown 

Ly what it fed on : yet within a month — 

Let me not think — Frailty, thy name is woman ! — 

A Uttle month — or ere those shoes were old, 

With which she foUow'd my poor father's body. 

Like Niobe, all tears — why she, ev'n she — 

Oh Heav'n ! a beast that wants discourse of reason. 

Would have mourn'd longer — married with mine uncle, 

My father's brother ; but no more hke my father, 

Than I to Hercules ! Within a month ! 

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears 

Had left the flushing of her galled eyes, 

She married ! Oh most wicked speed ! 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. o3 

edge," &c. But lie lias transposed tlie salutation, men 
of Ionia;" for he has commenced ydth giving utterance 
to his fears, as if he could not command himself to accost 
his hearers first, for his sense of the imminent danger. In 
the next place, he has distorted the order of the thoughts ; 
for before he said, they must exert themselves," (for this 
it is that he exhorts them to,) he first assigns the reason 
why they should do so, saying, '^Our affairs are balanced 
on a razor's edge," — so that his words seem not to be 
premeditated, but forced from him. 

Thucydides is still more of a perfect master in transposing 
and inverting the order of those things, which are alto- 
gether naturally united and inseparable. But Demosthenes, 
though less hardy than Thucydides, is yet more abundant 
in this kind of figure than any other writer ; exhibiting an 
appearance of much earnestness, nay, of uttering e\ery thing 
on the spur of the moment, by means of transpositions ; 
and, moreover, hahng his hearers along with him into a 
perilous maze of things seemingly unconnected.* For 
frequently, suspending the thought with which he set out, 
and abruptly interposing, by way of parenthesis, a mass 
of matter apparently quite iiTclevant, and thrust in incon- 
gruously and strangely, he puts the hearer in fear that he 
has suffered his subject to drop through altogether, and 



* The eloquence of St. Paul bears a very great resemblance to that 
of Demosthenes, as described in this section by Longinus. Some 
important point being always uppermost in his view, he often leaves 
his subject, and flies from it with brave in-egularity, and as unex- 
pectedly again returns to his subject, when one would imagine that he 
had entirely lost sight of it. For instance, in his defence before King 
Agrippa, Acts, xxvi. when, in order to wipe olf the aspersions 
thrown upon him by the Jews, that he was a turbulent and seditious 
person," he sets out with clearing his character, proving the integrity 
of his morals, and his inoffensive unblameable beha^ur, as one who 
hoped, by those means, to attain that happiness of another life, for 
which the twelve tribes served God continually in the temple on a 
sudden he drops the continuation of his defence, and cries out, Why 
should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise 
the dead?" It might be reasonably expected, that this would be the 
end of his argument ; but by flying to it, in so quick and unexpected a 
transition, he catches his audience before they are aware, and strikes 
dumb his enemies, though they will not be convinced. And this point 
being once carried, he comes about again, as unexpectedly, by, "I verily 
thought," &c. and goes on with his defence, till it brings him again to 
the same point of the resurrection, in ver. 23. 

F 2 



54 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



compels him, from earnest feeling, to share the dangers of 
the speaker : then, at length, towards the close, after a 
long interval, he very pertinently, but unexpectedly, adds 
the long-sought link of connexion, and raises surprise and 
admiration still higher, by the mere daring and imminent 
hazards of his transpositions. I shall forbear adducing 
examples, because of the miiltitude to be found in that 
writer. 



SECTION XXIII. 

Moreover, the figures called polyptotes, accumulations, f 
startling turns, J and gradations, § are (as you know) very 
effective ; contributing to the ornament of style, and aiding 
every thing that is subhme and impassioned. And to what 



* " Polyptotes." Longinus gives no instance of this figure : but one 
may be produced from Cicero's oration for Caelius, where he says, " We 
will contend with arguments, we will refute accusations by evidences 
brighter than light itself : fact shall engage with fact, cause mth cause, 
reason with reason." To which may be added that of Virgil, iEn. x. 
361. 

Heeret pede pes, densusque viro vir. — Pearce, 

t " Accumulations." The orator makes use of this figure, when, 
instead of the whole of a thing, he numbers up all its particulars : of 
which we have an instance in Cicero's oration for Marcellus : " The 
centurion has no share in this honom-, the heutenant none, the cohort 
none, the troop none." If Cicero had said, " The soldiers have no 
share in this honour," this would have declared his meaning, but not 
the force of the speaker. See also Quinctihan, Instit. Orat. 1. viii. c. 2, 
De congerie verborum ac sententiarum idem significantium. — Pearce. 

X " startling tiunas." Quinctihan gives an instance of this figure, 
Instit. Orat. 1. ix. c. 3, from Cicero's oration for Sex. Roscius : " For 
though he is master of so much art, as to seem the only person aUve 
who is fit to appear upon the stage ; yet he is possessed of such noble 
qualities, that he seems to be the only man aUve who should never 
be seen there." — Pearce. . 

§ " Gradations." There is an instance of this figure in Rom. v. It is 
continued throughout the chapter, but the branches of the latter part 
appear not plainly, because of the transpositions. It begins ver. 1, 
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through 
our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also we have access by faith into 
this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribu- 
lation worketh patience ; and patience, experience ; and experience, 
hope ; and hope maketh not ashamed ; because," &c. &c. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



55 



an amazing degree do changes, either of time, case, person, 
number, or gender, diversify and enliven language !* 

As to numbers, I assert, not only that words which, being 
singular in form, are found on reflection to have a plural 
force, are ornamental ; as, for example : 

Along the shores an endless crowd appear^ 

Whose noise, and din, and shouts, confound the ear ;t 

but, and this is more worthy of attentive observation, that 
sometimes plurals impart additional grandeur to the style, 
and give it an air of pomp and splendour by the mere force 
of thronged numbers. So the words of (Edipus in Sopho- 
cles ; 

Oh ! nuptials, nuptials ! 
You first produced, and since our fatal birth 
Have mix'd our blood, and all our race confounded. 
Blended in horrid and incestuous bonds ! 
See ! fathers, brothers, sons, a dire alhance ! 
See ! sisters, wives, and mothers ! all the names 
That e'er from lust or incest could arise. { 

For all these terms denote on the one side (Edipus only, 
and on the other Jocasta ; but, notwithstanding, the number 
spread out into plurals has, at the same time, given increased 
effect to their misfortunes also. Another poet has made 
use of the same method of increase. 

Then Hectors and Sarpedons issued forth. 

Of the same kind is that expression of Plato concerning 
the Athenians, quoted by me elsewhere also. '^For no 
Pelopses, nor Cadmuses, nor iEgyptuses, nor Danauses, 
dwell here with us, nor any of the many others of barbar- 
ous descent ; but pure Grecians undebased by foreign 
mixture," &c.§ For when names are thus made to signify 
collected numbers, the ideas they convey accord with the 
imposing effect with which they strike upon the ear. Yet 
recourse is not to be had to this figure on all occasions, but 



* Changes of case and gender fall not under the district of the Eng- 
lish tongue. On those of time, person, and number, Longinus enlarges 
in the sequel. 

t The beauty of this figure will, I fear, be lost in the translation. 
But it must be observ^ed, that the word crowd, is of the singular, and 
appear, of the plural number. Allowance must be made in such cases ; 
for when the genius of another language will not retain it, the original 
beauty must unavoidably fly off. 

t (Edip. Tyran. ver. 1417. § Plato in Menexeno, vol. v. 297. 



I 



56 



I.ONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



then only when the subject admits of enlargement^ or multi- 
plication, or hyperbole, or pathos, either some one or 
more of these. For to have bells hung every where sui^ely 
savours too much of the sophist.* 



SECTION XXIV. 

And doubtless, contrariwise also, plurals reduced and con- 
tracted into singulars, have sometimes the subhmest effect. 
*^Then all Peloponnesusf stood divided," says Demos- 
thenes. J And, "At the representation of Phrynicus's tra- 
gedy, called. The Capture of Miletus, the whole theatre § 
was moved to tears." || For thus to condense a number 
into unity, instead of expressing the distinct particulars, 

* This metaphor is borrowed from a custom among the ancients, 
who, at public games and concourses, were used to hang little bells 
(«:a>5a^ms) on the bridles and trappings of their horses, that their conti- 
nual chiming might add pomp to the solemnity. 

The robe or ephod of the high-priest, in the Mosaic dispensation, 
had this ornament of bells, though another reason, besides the pomp 
and dignity of the sound, is alleged for it in Exodus xxviii. 33. 

t All Peloponnesus." Instead of, " all the inhabitants of Pelo- 
ponnesus at that time took their stand on different sides. 

St. Paul makes use of this figure, jointly with a change of person, 
on several occasions, and with different views. In Rom. vii., to avoid 
the direct charge of disobedience on the whole body of the Jews, he 
transfers the discourse into the first person, and so charges the insuf- 
ficiency and frailty of all his countiymen on himself, to guard against 
the invidiousness wliich an open accusation might have di'awn upon 
liim. See ver. 9 — 25. 

J Demosth. Orat. de Corona, p. 17. ed. Oxon. 

§ " The whole theatre." Instead of, " all the people in the theati-e." 
Miletus was a city of Ionia, which the Persians besieged and took. 
Phrynicus, a tragic poet, brought a play on the stage about the demo- 
lition of this city. But the Athenians (as Herodotus informs us) fined 
him a thousand drachmae, for ripping open afresh their domestic sores ; 
and pubhshed an edict, that no one should ever after mite on that 
subject. — Pearce. 

Shakspeare makes a noble use of this figure, in the following lines 
from his Antony and Cleopatra, though in the close there is a very 
strong dash of the Hyperbole : 

The city cast 
Her people out upon her, and Antony 
Enthron'd i'th' market-place, did sit alone 
Whistling to th' air ; which, but for vacancy. 
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, 
And made a gap in nature. 
\\ Herod, i. 6. c. 21. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



57 



seems to give more of substance and body to the idea. But 
the beauty, in each of these figures, arises, methinks, from 
the same cause. For when the terms are singular, to depart 
from the ordinary custom and multiply them, is the act of 
one that is moved by earnest feehng ; and where they are 
plural, to concentrate many things in one harmonious whole 
excites smprise, by reason of the complete transformation 
of things. 



SECTION XXV. 

Moreover, when you introduce things past as actually 
present, and doing, you will no longer relate, but display 
the very action before the eyes of your readers. A sol- 
dier," says Xenophon, (Xenophon de Cyri Institut. 1. 7,) 
''fell down under C^nrus's horse, and being trampled under 
foot, wounds him in the belly with his sword. The horse 
floundering, unseats Cyrus, and he falls. '"^ Thucydides 
makes very frequent use of this figure. 



SECTION XXVI. 

In like manner, change of persons is powerfully effective, 
and oftentimes makes the hearer think himself actually 
present, and concerned in the dangers described : 

Thou hadst deemed them of a kind 
By toil untameable, so fierce they strove. — Coivper, 

And so Aratus, (Phsenom. v. 287,) 

0 put not thou to sea in that sad month If 

* So Virgil, ^n. 1. xi. ver. 637. 

Orsilochus Romuli, quando ipsum horrebat adire, 
Hastam intorsit equo, ferrumque sub aure rehquit. 
Quo sonipes ictu fiirit arduus, altaque jactat 
Vulneris impatiens, adi^ecto pectore, crura. 
VoMtur ille excussus humi. 

By using the present tense, Virgil makes the reader see, almost with 
his eyes, the wound of the horse, and the fall of the warrior. — Pearce. 

t Virgil supplies another instance of the efficacy of this figure, in 
iEn. 1. viii. ver. 689. 

Una omnes ruere, ac totum spumare reductis 
Convolsum remis rostrisque tridentibus sequor. 
Alta petunt : pelago credas innare revolsas 
Cycladas, aut montes concurrere montibus altos. 



58 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



Much in the same way, Herodotus also, (1. ii. c. 29,) ''You 
■will sail upwards from the city Elephantina, and then you 
will arrive at a level coast. And when you have travelled over 
this tract of land, you will go on board another ship, and 
sail two days, and then you will arrive at a great city, called 
Meroe." Do you see, my fi'iend, how he carries your ima- 
gination along with him in his excursion ! how he conducts 
you through the different scenes, converting hearing into 
sight. And all such passages, by appealing to the hearers 
personally, make them fancy themselves present in the actual 
transactions. And when you addi'ess your discourse, not 
as to all in general, but to one in particular, as here. 

You could not see, so fierce Tydides rag'd, 
Whether for Greece or Ilion he engag'd.* — 

Iliad. V. ver. 85. — Pope. 

Awakened by these addresses to himself, you will at once 
strike more forcibly upon his passions, make him more 
attentive, and fill him with hvehest interest in what is 
going on. 



SECTION XXVII. 

But farther, it sometimes happens, when a writer is saying 
any thing of a person, that, by a sudden transition, he 
quits his own, and speaks as that very person ; a form 
of speech which indicates an outburst of passion. 



The allusions in the last two lines prodigiously heighten and exalt 
the subject. So Tasso describes the horror of a battle very pompously, 
in his Gierusalemme Liberata. Canto 9no. 

L'horror, la crudelta, la tema, il lutto 

Van d'intorno scorrendo : et in varia imago 

Vincitrice la morte errar per tutto 

Yedi^esti, et andeggiar di sangue un lago. 

Solomon's words, in Prov. viii. 3-4, bear some resemblance, in the 
transition, to this instance from Homer: " She crieth at the gates, at 
the entr)^ of the city, at the coming in of the doors — Unto you, 0 men, 
I call, and my voice is to the sons of men." — Pearce. 

There is also an example of it in St. Luke, v. 14. " And he com- 
manded him to tell no man, but — Go, show thyself to the priest." 

And another more remarkable, in Psalm cxx\4ii. 1-2. " Blessed are 
all they that fear the Lord, and walk in liis ways — For thou shalt eat 
the labour of thy hands, Oh ! well is thee, and happy shalt thou be !" 



LOXGINUS ON THE STJBLIME. 



59 



On rushed bold Hector, gloomy as the night ; 
Forbids to plunder, animates the fight, 
Points to the fleet : for by the gods, who flies, 
Who dares but hnger, by tliis hand he dies.* — 

Ihad XY. 346.— Pope, 

No^v tlie narratiye, as being suitable to him, the poet 
has assumed to himself ; but, "without any previous note of 
transition, he has at once put this abrupt menace into the 
mouth of the enraged hero ; for it would have sounded 
flat, had he stopped to insert. Hector spaJce thus, or thus. 
But, as it stands, the transfer of the speech outstrips any 
transition the poet could have expressed. 

Upon which account this figure is then most seasonably 
applied, when the pressing exigency of time will not admit 
of any stop or delay, but even enforces a transition from 
persons to persons, as in this passage of Hecateeus .^f "'^ Now 
Ceyx, troubled at these proceedings, immediately com- 
manded the Herachdse to depart his tenitories — For I am 
- unable to assist you. Therefore that you may not perish 
yourselves, nor inflict a wound upon me, go seek a retreat 
with some other people.^' For Demosthenes has made 
use of this variety of persons in a different manner, and 
with much passion and volubility, in his oration (the 
first) against Aristogiton : J " And shall there not be found 
one among you that burns with indignation and wrath 



* There is a celebrated and masterly transition of this kind, in 
Milton's Paradise Lost, book iv. 

Thus at their shady lodge arriv'd, both stood, 
Both tum'd, and under open sky ador'd 
The God that made both sky, au% earth, and heav'n, 
Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe, 
And starry pole — Thou also mad'st the night, 
Maker omnipotent, and thou the day. 

t " Hecataeus." He means HecatEeus the Milesian, the first of the 
historians, according to Suidas, who wrote in prose. — Langiaine. — See 
also Luke v. 14. 

X This figure is veiy artfully used by St. Paid, in his Epistle to the 
Romans. His drift is to show, that the Jews were not the people of 
God, exclusive of the Gentiles, and had no more reason than they, to 
form such high pretensions, since they had been equally guilty of 
violating the moral law of God, which was antecedent to the Mosaic, 
and of eternal obligation. Yet, not to exasperate the Jews at setting 
out, and so render them averse to all the arguments he might aft^r- 



60 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBT IME. 



on account of the outrageous acts of this abominable and 

shameless wretch, who Thou most polluted of all men ! 

when precluded liberty of speaking, not by bars or doors, 
for these indeed some one might have burst." — Suddenly 
leaving the thought unfinished, he almost tears one word 
in twain, to address it at once to different persons, from 
the vehemence of his passion. " Who — thou most polluted 
of all men !" Then, having diverted his discourse to Aris- 
togiton, and seemingly left the judges, yet by the pathos 
introduced he has made its effect upon mem much more 
powerful and direct. So Penelope in Homer. ^ — Odyss, 
iv. 681. 

The lordly suitors send ! But why must you 
Bring baneful mandates from that odious crew ? 
What ! must the faithful servants of my lord 
Forego their tasks for them to crown the board ? 
I scorn then- love, and I detest their sight ; 
And may they share their last of feasts to-night I 
Why thus, ungen'rous men, devour my son ? 
"Why riot thus, till he be quite undone ? 
Heedless of him, yet timely hence retire, 
And fear the vengeance of his awful sire. 
Did not your fathers oft his might commend ? 
And children you the wondrous tale attend ? 
That injur'd hero you return'd may see ; 
Think what he was, and dread what he may be.* 



wards produce, he begins with the Gentiles, and gives a black catalogue 
of all their vices, which in reaUty were, as well as appeared, excessively 
heinous in the eyes of the Jews, till, in the beginning of the second 
chapter, he unexpectedly turns upon them with, " Therefore thou art 
inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art, that judgest," ver. 1 ; and 
again, ver. 3, " And thinkest thou this, 0 man, that judgest them 
which do such things, and dost the same, that thou shalt escape the 
judgment of God ?" &c. &c. If the Avhole be read with attention, the 
apostle's art will be found surprising, his eloquence will appear grand, 
his strokes cutting, the attacks he makes on the Jews successive, and 
rising in their strength. 

^ In these verses Penelope, after she had spoken of the suitors in the 
third person, seems on a sudden exasperated at their proceedings, and 
addresses her discourse to them as if they were present : 

Why thus, ungen'rous men, devour my son ? &c. 

To which passage in Homer, one in Virgil bears great resemblance, 
Mn, iii. ver. 708. 

Hie pelagi tot tempestatibus actus, 
Heu ! genitorem, omnis curae casusque levamen, 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



61 



SECTION XXYIIL 

And, certainly, no one, I think, can doubt that a peri- 
phrasis (circumlocution) is a cause of subhmity. For, as 
in music, the principal tone is rendered sweeter by the 
grace notes introduced, so a periphrasis frequently aids 
the effect of the simple expression, and imparts a harmony 
to it, which is highly ornamental, especially if it be not 
tumid and inelegant, but agreeably tempered. This may 
be estabhshed beyond dispute from a passage of Plato, in 
the beginning of his Funeral Oration: ''We have novr 
rendered to them, in a substantial fonoi, the things that are 
due to them, and, these obtained, they go the fated way, 
having been escorted publicly by the state, and privately 
by their respective connexions.""^ He calls death, then, 
" the fated way," and their obtaining the appointed rites, 

Amitto Auchisen ; hie me, pater optime, fessum 
Deseris, heu! tantis nequicquam erepte periclis. 

As does a passage also in the poetical book of Job, chap. x\i. ver. 7, 
where, after he had said of God, " But now he hath made me weary," 
by a sudden transition, he addresses his speech to God in these words 
immediately following, " Thou hast made desolate all my company." — 
Pearce. 

* Archbishop Tillotson T^ill afford us an instance of the use of this 
figure, on the same thought almost as that quoted by Longinus from 
Plato. 

" When we consider that we have but a little while to be here, that 
we are upon our journey travelling towards our heavenly countn-^, where 
we shall meet vriih all the dehghts we can desire, it ought not to trou- 
ble us much to endm-e storms and foul ways, and to want many of 
those accommodations we might expect at home. This is the common 
fate of travellers, and we must take things as we find them, and not 
look to have ever}' thing just to our mind. These difficulties and iiKion- 
veniences will shortly be over, and after a few days will be quite 
forgotten, and be to us as though they had never been. And when we 
are safely landed in our own country-, \^ith vrhat pleasure shall we look 
back on these rough and boisterous seas we have escaped !" — Vol. i. 
p. 98. 

In each passage, death is the principal thought to wliich all the 
circumstances of the circumlocutions chiefly refer ; but the Archbishop 
has wound it up to a greater height, and tempered it with more agree- 
able and more extensive sweetness. Plato inters his heroes, and then 
bids them adieu ; but the Christian orator conducts them to a better 
world, from whence he gives them a retrospect of that through which 
they have passed, to enlarge the comforts, and give them a higher 
enjoyment of the futm^e. 

G 



62 



LONGINTJS ON THE SUBLIME. 



a public escorting of them by their country. Now, 
by this means, has he not given becoming elevation to 
the thought, which he found bare and unadorned, but 
which he has graced by melodious diction, pouring 
around it the sweetness arising out of a well-tempered 
periphrasis, hke a kind of harmony. So Xenophon, 
(Cyropsed. lib. 1,) "You look upon toil as the guide to 
a happy hfe. You have laid up in your souls an acqui- 
sition passing glorious and soldier-like, for nothing pro- 
duces in you such sensible emotions of joy as commen- 
dation.^' By expressing willingness to endure toil in this 
circumlocution, " You look upon labour as the guide to a 
happy life and by expanding the other ideas after the 
same manner, he has embraced in his encomium a reflection 
of a lofty character. So, that inimitable passage of Herodotus, 
(i. 105,) "The goddess afflicted those of the Scythians 
who had pillaged her temple with the female disease."^ 



SECTION XXIX. 

But circumlocution is more dangerous than any other kind 
of figure, unless one use it with due regard to proportion ; 
for it must obviously be feeble in its effect, if it savour of 
verbiage and dulness.f For this reason, Plato (for he makes 
frequent, and, in some places, unreasonable use of this 
figure) is ridiculed very much for the following expression 
in his Treatise of Laws: (de Legibus, 1. 5,) " It is not right 
to suffer riches, of either gold or silver, to be set up and 
dwell in a city.'' For they say, had he forbidden the pos- 

* Commentators have laboured hard to discover what this disease 
was, and abundance of remarks, learned and curious to be sure, have 
been made upon it. The best way will be to imitate the decorum of 
Herodotus, and leave it still a mystery. 

t " Circumlocution is more," &c. Shakspeare, in King Richard 
the Second, has made sick John of Gaunt pour out such a multitude to 
express England, as never was, nor ever will be met with again. Some 
of them indeed sound very finely, at least, in the ears of an Enghshman : 
for instance, 

This royal throne of kings, this seat of Mars, 
This other Eden, demi-paradise. 
This fortress built by nature for herself 
Against infection in the hand of war ; 
This happy breed of men, this little world, 
This precious stone set in the silver sea. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



63 



session of cattle, it is manifest lie would have said riches 
of mutton and beef. 

But I will say no more, for it is enough for me, my dear 
Terentianus, to have discoursed thus far, in passing, upon 
the use of figures in producing the subhme. For all I have 
mentioned render compositions more pathetic and affecting. 
And the pathetic partakes of the subhme, in the same 
manner as the ethical style of writing partakes of the 
agreeable. 



PART lY. 



SECTION XXX. 

But since the thoughts and the language of compositions 
generally throw light upon each other, let us, in the next 
place, consider, what it is that remains to be said of that 
part which concerns the diction alone. Now, that a judi- 
cious choice of apt and magnificent terms has a wonderful 
effect to move and fascinate an audience, that it is this 
which all orators and writers exert their utmost endeavours 
to attain, as being that which of itself makes their works 
to bloom with all the charms of grandeur, beauty, antique 
richness, solemnity, strength, energy, and every other 
excellence whatsoever, even such as we behold in the goodliest 
statues ; and which inspires things inanimate with a living 
tongue, as it were ; it would, it is to be apprehended, be 
superfluous to state at length to one well acquainted with 
the fact. For, in very truth, ornamental words are tlie 
pecidiar light of our thoughts. But then it is not meet that 
they should every where exhibit an ak of pomp. For to 
clothe trifling subjects in majestic and solemn expressions, 
would make the same ridiculous appearance, as if one 
should pat a large tragic mask upon a child. But in 
poetry ^ ^ ^ [The remainder of this section 

is lost.] ^ ^ ^ 



64 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



SECTION XXXI. 

* * [The beginning of this section is lost.] 
-'i^ ^ ^]^is verse of Anacreon, the term is not select, 
yet it pleases, because it is natural : 

My heart's not tow'rd tlie Thracian girl.* 

So, that admirable expression of Theopompus seems to 
me, at least, most significant, by reason of the just analogy, 
though Cecilius, I know not why, finds fault with it — 

Philip (says he) swallows affronts, in comphance with 
the exigencies of his affairs/' 

A vulgarism, then, is sometimes much more significant 
than an ornamental term; for it is recognized at once, 
because it is taken from common life ; and what is familiar 
to us, is, for that very cause, more convincing. "f Therefore, 

* There never was a Mne of higher grandeur, or more honourable to 
human nature, expressed, at the same time, in a greater plainness and 
simplicity of terms, than the following, in the Essay on Man — 

An honest man's the noblest work of God. 

f Images dra^vn from common life, or famiUar objects, stand in need 
of a deal of judgment to support and keep them from sinking, but have 
a much better effect, and are far more expressive, when managed by a 
skilful hand, than those of a higher nature : the truth of this remark 
is visible from these hues in Shakspeare's Romeo and Juliet : — 

I would have thee gone ; 
And yet no further than a wanton's bird, 
That lets it hop a httle from her hand. 
Like a poor prisoner in his twdsted gyves. 
And vdth a silk thread pulls it back again, 
So loving jealous of its Uberty. 

Mr. Addison has made use of an image of a lower nature in his Cato, 
where the lover cannot part with his mistress without the highest 
regret ; as the lady could not with her lover in the former instance 
from Shakspeare. He has touched it with equal dehcacy and grace : 

Thus o'er the dying lamp, th' unsteady flame 
Hangs quiv'ring to a point ; leaps off by fits. 
And falls again, as loath to quit its hold. 

I have ventured to give these instances of the beauty and strength 
of images taken from low and common objects, because, vdiat the critic 
says of terms, holds equally in regard to images. An expression is not 
the worse for being ob\ious and familiar, for a judicious apphcation 
gives it new dignity and strong significance. All images and words are 
dangerous to such as want genius and spirit. By their management, 
grand words and images, improperly thro^Ti together, sink into 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



65 



when a person, to promote his ambitious designs, bears ill 
treatment and reproaches with patience, and seeming plea- 
sure, to say that he swallows affronts, is as vividly expressive 
a phrase as could be resorted to. The following passage 
from Herodotus (1. vi. c. 75,) is of a somewhat similar 
kind : Cleomenes (says he) being seized mth madness, 
wdth a little knife that he had cut his own flesh into small 
pieces, tin, having reduced his body to shreds, he expired." 
And again, (vii. c. 181,) ''Pythes, remaining stiU in the 
ship, fought till he was cut to pieces." For these expres- 
sions approach near to vulgarity, but are not vulgar since 
they are emphatically significant. 



SECTION XXXIL 

As to number of Metaphors, Cecihus seems to join their 
opinion, who have laid it down, that two or three, at most, 
be employed in expressing the same object. But in this, 
also, Demosthenes is our rule and guide ; and the proper 
time to apply them is, when the passions are hurried on 
like a torrent, and draw into their vortex a whole crowd of 

burlesque and sounding nonsense, and the easy and familiar are tortured 
into insipid fustian. A true genius Tvill steer securely in either course, 
and with such boldness on particular occasions, that he will almost 
touch upon rocks, yet never receive any damage. This remark, in that 
part of it which regards the terms, may be illustrated by the following 
lines of Shakspeare, spoken by Apemantus to Timon, when he had 
abjured all human society, and vowed to pass the remainder of his days 
in a desert : 

What! think'stthou 
That the bleak air, thy boist'rous chamberlain, 
Will put thy shirt on warm ? mil these moist trees, 
That have out~hv'd the eagle, page thy heels, 
And skip when thou point'st out ? will the cold brook 
Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste 
To cure thy o'er-night's surfeit ? Call the creatures, 
Whose naked natures live in all the spite 
Of wreakful heav'n, whose bare unhoused trunks. 
To the conflicting elements expos'd. 
Answer mere nature ; bid them flatter thee ; 
Oh ! thou Shalt find— 

The whole is carried on with so much spirit, and supported by such 
an air of solemnity, that it is noble and affecting. Yet the same expres« 
sions and allusions, in inferior hands, might have retained their original 
baseness, and been quite ridiculous. 

G 2 



66 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



nietapliors, as if they were demanded by the occasion. 
" Those polluted men, says he, those fiends, those cringing 
traitors, that have cruelly maimed and mangled their 
respective countries, having drunk up their liberty, and 
given the cup to Phihp once, and since to Alexander, who 
measure happiness by their belly and the vilest consider- 
ations ; but as for the spirit of independence, and the reso- 
lution never to endure a master, which the Greeks of old 
regarded as the consummation and standard of all felicity, 
these they have utterly subverted.'"^ In this passage, the 
orator's indignation at the traitors throws the crowd of 
metaphors into the back ground. It is for this cause, 
Aristotle and Theophrastus say, that bold metaphors ought 
to be introduced with some such palliatives as, so to speak ; 
and, as it were, and, if I may speak with so much boldness. 
For this self-condemnation, say they, qualifies the adven- 
turousness of the expressions. 

And I admit this doctrine also : yet still I maintain 
what I advanced before in regard tcT figures, that bursts of 
passion, opportunely introduced, and strokes of geimine 
sublimity, are the proper antidotes to the effects of bold 
and acccumulated metaphors ; for it is the nature of the 
former to draw all the other things into, their impetuous 
current, and drive them onward ; nay, to demand expres- 
sions of surpassing boldness, as absolutely necessary ; and 
they do not allow the hearer leisure to criticise on the 



* Demosthenes, in this instance, bursts not out upon the traitorous 
creatures of Phihp, with such bitterness and severity ; strikes them not 
dumb, with such a continuation of vehement and cutting metaphors ; 
as St. Jude some profligate wretches, in his Epistle, ver. 12, 13 : 

" These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, 
feeding themselves "without fear: clouds they are without water, carried 
about of winds : trees, whose fruit withereth, without fi'uit, plucked up 
by the roots : raging weaves of the sea, foaming out their own shame : 
wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for 
ever." 

By how much the bold defence of Christianity, against the lewd 
practices, insatiable lusts, and impious blasphemies of wicked abandoned 
men, is more glorious than the defence of a petty state, against the 
intrigues of a foreign tyrant ; or, by how much more honourable and 
praiseworthy it is, to contend for the gloiy of God and rehgion, than 
the reputation of one repubhc ; by so much does this passage of the 
apostle exceed that of Demosthenes, commended by Longinus, in force 
of expression, liveliness of allusion, and height of subhmity. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



67 



number of the metaphors, from the contagion of the 
speaker's enthusiasm.^ 

But further even in discussing common places and in 
descriptions, there is nothing so significantly expressive as 
continued and successive tropes. By these has Xenophon 
(Mem, i, c. 4) described so magnificently the anatomy of 
the human structm'e. By these has Plato (Timseus) given 
a still more lifelike portraiture of the same, in a strain of 
divine eloquence. The head of man he calls the citadel ;f 



* This remark shows the penetration of the judgment of Longinus, 
and proves the propriety of the strong metaphors in Scripture ; as, 
when arrows are said to be " drunk with blood," and a sword to 
devour flesh." (Deut. xxxii. 42.) It illustrates the eloquence of St. 
Paul, who uses stronger, more expressive, and more accumulated meta- 
phors, than any other -ssTiter ; as when, for instance, he styles his con- 
verts. His joy, his cro^n, his hope, his glory, his crown of rejoicing." 
(Phil. iii. 9.) Wlien he exhorts them " to put on Christ." (Rom. xiii. 
14.) A^Tien he speaks against the heathens, " who had changed the 
truth of God into a lie." (Rom. i. 25.) ^Yhen agamst wicked men, 
" whose end is destruction, whose God is theii- belly, and whose glory 
is their shame." (Phil. iii. 19.) See a chain of strong ones, Rom, iii. 
13—18. 

t The Allegory or chain of metaphors that occurs in Psalm Ixxx. 8, 
is no way inferior to this of Plato. The royal author speaks thus of the 
people of Israel, under the metaphor of a \-ine : " Thou hast brought a 
vine out of Egjn^t : thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it. 
Thou madest room for it, and when it had taken root, it filled the 
land. The hills were covered vdth the shadow of it, and the boughs 
thereof were like the goodly cedar-trees. She stretched out her 
branches unto the sea, and her boughs unto the river." — Pearce. 

Paul has nobly described, in a continuation of metaphors, the Chris- 
tian armour, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, chap. \i. 13, &c. The 
sublime description of the horse in Job xxxix. 19 — 25, has been 
highly applauded by several writers. The reader may see some just 
observations on it m the Guardian, No. 86. But the 29th chapter of 
the same book ^^iU aiford as fine instances of the beaut}- and energy of 
this figure as can any where be met Tsith : " Oh that I were as in 
' months past, as in the days when God presented me ! — when the 
I Ahnighty was yet with me, when my cliildren were about me ; when I 
washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil ! 
— When the ear heard me, then it blessed me ; and when the eye saw 
me, it gave witness to me. — The blessing of him that was ready to 
perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heai-t to sing for joy. 
I put on righteousness, and it clothed me ; judgment was as a robe 
and a diadem. I was eyes to the bhnd, and feet was I to the lame. I 
was a father to the poor." There is another beautiful use of this figm-e 
j ' in the latter part of the 65th Psalm. The description is lively, and 
what the French call Hante^ or laughing. It has indeed been frequently 



68 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



the neck an ishthmus, placed midway between the head 
and the breast, and supported by the vertebrae, which are, as 
it were, pivots, on which it turns ; pleasure the bait, which 
allures men to evil, and the tongue the informer of tastes ; 
the heart, which is the nucleus of the veins, and the foun- 
tain of the blood, that circulates rapidly through all the 
members, is posted in a commanding position; and the 
ramifications of the vessels he calls narrow w^ays. And 
because the heart is subject to palpitations, either from 
fear of some impending evil, or under excitement of anger, 
since it is of a fiery nature, the gods, says he, providing a 
remedy for these, planted in the body the lungs, a peculiar 
substance, soft, bloodless, and cellular, as it were a fender, 
that, whenever choler inflames the heart, it might sustain 
no injury by impinging upon a yielding material. The seat 
of the concupiscible passions, he has named a kind of 
women's apartment; and the seat of the irascible, a sort of 
men's apartment; but the spleen he calls the sponge or 
towel of the viscera, w^hence, when saturated with their 
ofiscourings, it becomes enlarged and turgid. Then, says he, 
the gods covered all those parts with flesh, opposing it 
against whatever might assail them from without, as it 
were woolpacks. The blood he calls the food of the flesh ; 
and adds, that, for the sake of conveying nourishment, they 
formed ducts throughout the body, as though they were 
making water-courses in gardens, that the fluids conveyed 
by the veins might flow, as it w^ere, from some perennial 
fountain through the numerous sluices of the body. And 
at the approach of death, the moorings of the soul, he says, 
are loosed, as of a ship, and she herself let go without 
restraint. These, and infinite other turns of the same 
nature, occur in the sequel ; but those akeady indicated 
suffice to show, that tropes are naturally endued with an 
air of grandeur, that metaphors contribute to sublimity, 
and that they are appropriately employed in descriptive, for 
the most part, and pathetic passages. 

Now, that the use of tropes, as well as of all other things 
which are ornamental in discourse, is at all times very 



observed, that the Eastern writings abound very much in strong meta- 
phors ; but in Scripture they are always supported by a ground-work 
of mascuhne and ners^ous strength, without which they are apt to swell 
into ridiculous bombast. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



69 



liable to excess, is obvious, without any remark from me. 
Hence it comes to pass, tbat many severely censure Plato, 
because oftentimes, as if liis language were dictated by a 
kind of frenzy, he suffers himself to be hurried into extra- 
vagant and harsh metaphors, and ostentatious allegory. 

For, says he, is it not easy to conceive, that a city ought to 
resemble a goblet replenished with a well-tempered mixture ; 
where, when wine of furious potency is poured in, it fumes 
and sparkles ; but when chastened by another more sober 
divinity, by virtue of this goodly association, it makes a 
wholesome and convenient beverage.^' (De Legg. 1. vi.) 
For, say they, to call water a sober divinity, and the mixtm^e 
a chastening, is the expression of a poet who is certainly 
not sober himself. 

CeciHus, who censured these, which, after all, are but 
trifling defects, nevertheless had the rashness, in his Essay 
on Lysias, * for this very cause, to declare him in all respects 
preferable to Plato; moved thereto by two overbearing 
passions. For though he loved Lysias with more than self- 
love, yet he hated Plato more intensely, on every account, 
than he loved Lysias. Besides, he was hurried on by so 
much heat and prejudice, as to presume on the concession 
of certain points which never will be granted. For Plato 
being oftentimes faulty, he maintains that he is inferior to 
Lysias, as being a faultless and perfect writer ; but this is 
certainly not a true assumption, nor near the truth. 



SECTION XXXIIL 

But let us for once admit, that there is such a thing as a 
perfect and unexceptionable writer ; will it not then be 
worth while to consider generally this very question: 
Whether, in poetry or prose, what is truly grand, with an 
admixture of some faults, be not preferable to that which 
has nothing extraordinary in its best parts, but which is 
correct throughout, and faultless ? Nay, further, whether 
the palm would be rightly adjudged to those compositions 
which exhibit the more numerous excellencies, or the higher 

* Lysias was one of the ten celebrated orators of Athens. He was a 
neat, elegant, correct, and witty writer, but not subhme. Cicero calls 
him projpe perfectum, almost perfect. Quinctilian says he was more 
like a clear fountain than a great river. 



70 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



degrees of sublimity. For these questions are germane to a dis- 
cussion on the sublime, and imperiously demand adjudication. 

I readily allow, that writers of a lofty and towering 
genius are by no means faultlessly correct ; for whatever is 
neat and accurate throughout, is very liable to be flat, 
while in things that are sublime, as in great affluence of 
fortune, some matters must needs be overlooked ; but 
perhaps it is also a necessary consequence, that geniuses of 
a humble and mediocre kind, because they never make 
hazardous attempts, nor aim at the highest things, com- 
monly preserve an uniform faultlessness and comparative 
exemption from failure, but that things great and sublime 
are Hable to fall, merely because they are great and lofty. 
Nor am I ignorant of another thing, that, in forming an 
estimate of all human works, their imperfections naturally 
come into prominent notice, and the remembrance of faults 
is indehbly impressed upon the mind, whereas that of 
excellencies is rapidly effaced.* For my own part, I have 
taken notice of no inconsiderable number of faults in Homer, 
and some other of the greatest authors, and cannot by any 
means be bhnd or partial to them ; though I judge them 
not to be voluntary faults, so much as oversights, unguard- 
edly, inadvertently, and undesignedly made, and which 
have crept insensibly into their works, from the inattention 
to minutiae natural to a great genius :f but, notwithstanding, 
I hold, that the palm should be adjudged to those that can 
plead the higher excellencies, although they do not preserve 
an uniform faultlessness in all things, if for no other consi- 
deration, for the greatness of their genius alone. J 



* So Horace, Ep. 1. ii. Ep. i. 262. 

Discit enim citius meminitque libentius illud, 
Quod quis deridet, quam quod probat et veneratur. 

t So Horace, Ars Poet. 351. 

Ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis 
Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit, 
Aut humana parum ca\it natura. 

J So Pope, in the spirit of Longinus : 

Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend, 
And rise to faults true critics dai*e not mend ; 
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, 
And snatch a grace beyond the rules of art ; 
Which, without passing through the judgment gains 
The heart, and all its end at once attains. — 

Essay on Criticism, 



LONGIXL'S ON THE SUBLIME. 



/I 



For assuredly, tlioiigli Apollonms, author of the Argo- 
nautics, ^ as a writer without a bleraish ;^ and no one ever 
succeeded better in pastorals than Theocritus, except in some 
pieces where he has quitted his own province, yet, would you 
choose to be ApoUonius or Theocritus, rather than Homer? 
Is Erastosthenes,f whose little poem of Erigone is fault- 
less throughout, to be deemed superior to Archilochus, who 
mingles with his sublimities many things also which ill 
assort with them, and that, from the impetuosity of a 
divine inspiration, that will not brook control ? In lyrics, 
would you sooner be Bacchyhdes J than Pindar, or lo the 
Chian,§ than even Sophocles? For certainly, Bacchylides 
and lo are faultless writers, and have attained to perfection 
in the smooth and polished style ; but Pindar and Sopho- 
cles at times bear down all before them in their career of 
fire, as it were ; but frequently their fire is suffered to go 
out throught inadvertence, and they fall most infelicitously. 
But yet, no man of sound judgment, I am certain, would 
scruple to prefer the single (Edipus of Sophocles, before 
all that lo ever composed. i| 



* ApoUonius was born at Alexandria, but called a Rhodian, because 
he resided at Rhodes. He was the scholar of CaUimachus, and 
succeeded Eratosthenes as keeper of Ptolemy's library : he wrote the 
Argonautics, which are still extant. Of this poet Quinctihan has thus 
given his judgment, Instit. Orat, 1. x. c. 1. " He pubhshed a perform- 
ance, which was not despicable, but had a certain even mediocrity 
throughout. — Pearce. 

t Eratosthenes the CjTenean, scholar of CaUimachus the poet. 
Among other pieces of poetry, he T\Tote the Erigone. He was prede- 
cessor to ApoUonius in Ptoler^'s library at Alexandria. — Pearce. 

X Bacchylides, a Greek poet, famous for l}Tic verse ; bom at lulis, a 
town in the Isle of Ceos. He wi'ote the Apodemics, or the travels of a 
deit}-. The Emperor Julian was so pleased with his verses, that he is 
said to have drawn from thence rules for the conduct of life. And 
Hiero the Syracusan thought them preferable even to Pindar's, by a 
judgment quite contrary to what is given here by Longinus. — Pearce. 

§ lo the Chian, a dith^Tainbic poet, who, besides Odes, is said to 
have composed forty fables. He is called by Aristophanes, The Eastern 
Star, because he died whilst he was rating an ode that began with 
those words. — Pearce, 

I! The (Edipus Tyrannus, the most celebrated tragedy of Sophocles, 
which (as Pearce obser^-es) poets of almost all nations have endeavoured 
to imitate, though, in my opinion, very little to their credit. 



72 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



SECTION XXXIV. 

If the perfections of writings are to be estimated by nuni- 
ber, and not intrinsic v/orth^ tben even Hyperides will 
prove far superior to Demostlienes ; for lie has more variety 
and harmony, and a greater number of beauties, and in 
almost every perfection is next to excellent. He resembles a 
champion, practised in the five exercises, who, in each of 
them severally must yield the superiority to other athletes, 
but is superior to all unprofessional practitioners. For 
Hyperides, besides that he has, in every point, except the 
structure of his words, imitated the excellencies of Demos- 
thenes, has over and above embraced the graces and beauties 
of Lysias."^ For when his subject demands simplicity, he 
relaxes the energy of his style ; nor does he utter eveiy thing 
in one unaltered strain of vehemence, hke Demosthenes ; and 
in his description of manners, there is a charming sweetness. 
There is an exhaustless fund of wit about him, a vein of 
elegant satire, a natural grace, a skilfulness of irony, jests 
not clumsy or loose, after the manner of those old Attic 
writers, but natural and easy ; a ready talent at ridicule ; 
a deal of comic point, conveyed in a style of well-managed 
pleasantry ; and, in all these respects, a vrinning graceful- 
ness, that is almost inimitable. Gifted with extraordinary 
power to excite commiseration, he is also fertile in stories 
and famihar chat, returning to his subject after digressions 
without any distress or difficulty. Like as also, it is plain, 
that he has composed his discourse of Latona, in a style 
more hke poetry than prose ; and his funeral oration, with 
a pomp of diction, as far as I know, unequalled. 

t 

* " The graces — of Lysias." For the clearer understanding of this 
passage, we must observe, that there are two sorts of graces; the one 
majestic and grave, and proper for the poets, the other simple, and like 
railleries in comedy. Those of the last sort enter into the composition 
of the pohshed style, called by the rhetoricians yKa<pvpov Xoyov ; and of 
this kind were the graces of Lysias, who, in the judgment of Dionysius 
of Hahcarnassus, excelled in the polished style ; and for this reason, 
Cicero calls liim venustissimum oratorem. We have one instance of 
the graces of this petty orator : Speaking one day against ^schines, 
w^ho was in love with an old woman, "He is enamoured (cried he) 
of a lady, whose teeth may be counted easier than her fingers." 
Upon this account, Demetrius has ranked the graces of Lysias in the 
same class with those of Sophron, a farce writer. — Dacier. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



73 



Demosthenes, on the other hand, was not studious to 
portray the humours and characters of men ; he was not 
diffusiye in his eloquence ; far from flexible and phant, 
and void of pomp and parade ; and, in a word, for the 
most part, deficient in all the qualities ascribed to Hyperides. 
A\liere he constrains himself to be merry or facetious, if he 
makes people laugh, it is at himself. And the more he 
endeavours to be elegant, the farther he is from it. Had he 
ever attempted an oration for a Phryne or an Athenogenes, 
he would have only served still more as a foil to Hj^erides."^ 

But since, to my thinking, the beauties of Hj^erides, 
though numerous, have no inherent greatness ; are the 
productions of a sedate and sober genius, but without force 
to move an audience ; for certainly no one is affected by 
fear in reading him ; while Demosthenes is gifted, on the 
one hand, with a genius intensely sublime, and a capacity 
of lofty diction carried to a pitch of transcendent excellence, 
passions that live and breathe, an exhaustless copiousness. 



* Hyperides, of whom mention has been made already, and whom 
the author in this section compares ^yi^\l Demosthenes, was one of the 
ten famous orators of Athens. He ^vas Plato's scholar, and thought 
by some to have shared with Lycm-gus in the public administration. 
His orations for Plm-ne and Athenogenes were veiy much esteemed, 
though his defence of the former owed its success to a veiy remarkable 
incident, mentioned by Plutarch. — Life of the ten orators, in Hyperides. 

Phryne was the most famous courtezan of that age; her form so 
beautiful, that it was taken as a model for all the statues of Venus 
cars^ed at that time throughout Greece : yet an intrigue between her 
and Hjiierides grew so scandalous, that an accusation was preferred 
against her in the court of Athens. Hyperides defended her with all 
the art and rhetoric which experience and love could teach him, and 
his oration for her was as pretty and beautiful as his sul^ject. But as 
what is spoken to the ears makes not so deep an impression as what is 
shown to the eyes, H^qDerides found his eloquence unavailing, and 
effectually to soften the judges, uncovered the lady's bosom. Its snowy 
whiteness was an argument in her favour not to be resisted, and there- 
fore she was immediately acquitted. 

Longinus's remark is a comphment to Hyperides, but does a secret 
honour to Demosthenes. Hj-perides was a graceful, genteel speaker, 
one that could say pretty things, divert his audience, and, when a lady 
was the topic, quite outshine Demosthenes ; whose eloquence was too 
grand to appear for any thing but honour and liberty. Then he could 
warm, transport, and triumph ; could revive in his degenerate countr\^- 
men a love of their country and a zeal for freedom; could make them 
cry out in rage and furv, Let us arm, let us awav, let us march aorainst 
Philip." 

H 



74 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



shrewdness, rapidity ; and, on the other hand, a vehemence 
and power which none could ever approach ; since, I say, 
Demosthenes has embraced and monopohzed all these, as it 
were, heaven-sent gifts, for it were a sin to caU them human, 
he invariably surpasses all in the excellencies that are his own ; 
and, in place of those he has not, strikes down the orators 
of every age as with the force of thunder, and throws them 
into the shade as with the glare of lightning ; and sooner 
might a man look with stedfast gaze on the descending 
thunderbolt, than eye undismayed his reiterated flashes of 
passion. 



SECTION XXXV. 

Novi^, in the case of Plato, there is a certain difference of 
another sort. For Lysias, falling short of him, not only 
in the sublimity, but the number also of his beauties, 
exceeds him more in the number of his faults, than he falls 
short of him in the number of his excellencies. 

What, then, can we suppose that those god-like writers 
had in view, who laboured so earnestly to raise their compo- 
sitions to the highest pitch of the sublime, and looked 
down with contempt upon punctihous correctness ? It was, 
in addition to many other things, that nature never designed 
man to be a grovelling and ungenerous animal, but that, 
bringing him into hfe, and placing him in the midst of 
this universe, as in some crowded theatre, that we might 
be spectators, and j,ealous imitators of her in aU her mighty 
works, she implanted in our souls, from the first, an irresist- 
ible, an insatiable love of every thing that is grand, and 
that strikes us as exhibiting superior tokens of divine power. 
Hence it is, that even the whole world is not large enough 
for the speculations and reasonings of man's aspiring intel- 
lect ; but often his thoughts pass even the bounds that 
circumscribe the material universe. Let any one make a 
survey of the whole compass of this life, and see how 
universally the vast and grand is more deemed of than the 
correct and elegant, and he will soon discern what nature 
designed us for. Thus it is, I ween, that the impulse of 
our nature inclines us to admire, not little streams, trans- 
parent and useful though they be, but the Nile, and Ister, 
or the Rhine, or, much more still, the Ocean. Neither do 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



75 



we gaze with wonder at this little flame, which we ourselves 
have kindled, for the pure and spotless Hght it keeps up, 
but on the fires of heaven, though ofttimes veiled in dark- 
ness, nor count it a worthier object of admiration than the 
craters of ^tna, whose eruptions throw up rocks and 
whole hills from out their deep recesses, and sometimes 
pour forth rivers of those materials hquified, as well as 
pure unmingled fire.* But of all such things we may 
pronounce, that what is useful, or certainly necessary, for 
man, claims his regards as being of easy acquisition, but 
still it is the strange and wonderful tliat invariably com- 
mands his admiration. 



SECTION XXXVI. 

With regard, therefore, to sublimities in eloquence, which 
should never overshoot the mark of utility and advantage, 
we must consider, at the same time, that all the authors of 
these, though far removed from faultlessness, yet soar 
above the level of mortahty; and that while all other things 



* We have a noble description of the volcano of ^tna in Virgil, 
^n. 1. iii. V. 571, which will illustrate this passage in Longinus: 

Horrificis jnxta tonat yEtna minis, 
Interdumque atram prorumpit ad aethera nubem, 
Turbine fumantem piceo et candente fa^illa, 
AttoUitque globos flammarum, et sidera lambit : 
Interdum scopulos, avolsaque viscera montis 
Erigit eructans, liquefactaque saxa sub auras 
Cum gemitu glomerat, fundoque exiestuat imo. 

The coast where JEtJia, hes. 
Horrid and waste, its entrails fraught with fii*e; 
That now casts out dark fumes and pitchy clouds, 
Vast show'rs of ashes hov'ring in the smoke ; 
Now belches molten stones, and ruddy flames 
Incens'd, or tears up mountains by the roots, 
Or slings a broken rock aloft in air. 
The bottom works with smother'd fire, involv'd 
In pestilential vapours, stench, and smoke. — Addison. 

Longinus's short description has the same spirit and grandeur with 
Virgil's. The sidera lambit, in the fourth hne, has the swell in it, 
which Longinus, Sect. iii. calls super-tragical. Tliis is the remark of 
Dr. Pearce ; and it is obsen'able, that Mr. Addison has taken no notice 
of those words in his translation. 



76 



LONGINL'S ON THE SUBLIME. 



carry witli tliem evidence that they proceed from men^ yet 
the subhme indicates an approximation to the loftiness of 
divine intelhgence ; and that while the correct and faultless 
does but escape censure, the great and grand enforces 
admiration also.* 

Wliy need I yet further observe, that each of those noble 
writers frequently redeems all his failures by one single 
stroke of the sublime, one happy effort ; and it is worthy of 
especial remark, that if any one should pick out the slips 
of H^/mer, Demosthenes, Plato, and the other consummate 
authors, and put them together, the instances in which 
those heroes of fine writing have attained to absolute per- 
fection would be found to bear a very small, nay, an 
indefinitely small, proportion to them. It is on account of 
these that all posterity, in every age, exempt from the 
blinding prejudices created by envy, have freely awarded 
them the laurels they have earned, and, to this day, suffer 
them not to be torn from their brows, but will, as it 
seems, continue to guard them, 

As long as streams in silver mazes rove, 

Or spring \dth. annual green renews the grove. 

Homer or Cleobulus — Fenfmi. 

Now, in answer to the writer, who objects that the 
Colossus, t with all its faults, is not superior to the Guards- 
man of Polycletus, it is obvious to reply, among many 
other things, that, in works of art, it is exact proportion 
that wins our admiration; but in those of nature, grandeur 
and magnificence. J Now, speech is a gift bestowed upon us 



* Longinus, in the preceding section, had said, that men " view with 
amaze the celestial fires, (such as the sun and moon) though they are 
frequently obscm'ed the case is the same with the burning mountain 
^Etna, though it casts up pernicious fire from its abyss : but here, when 
he returns to the sublime authors, he intimates, that the sublime is the 
more to be admired, because, far from being useless or amusing 
merely, it is of great service to its authors, as well as to the pubha— 
Pearce. 

t The Colossus was a most famous statue of Apollo, erected at 
Rhodes by Jalysus, of a size so vast, that the sea ran, and ships of the 
greatest burden sailed, between its legs. — Pearce. 

t The DorjTphorus, a small statue by Polycletus, a celebrated 
statuary. The proportions were so finely observed in it, that Lysippus 
professed he had learned all his art from the study and imitation of it. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



77 



by nature. As, therefore, resemblance and proportion to 
the originals is required in statues, so, in the noble faculty 
of discourse, there should be something, as I have said, 
more than humanly great. 

But still, (for after a long excursion I come round to the 
precept I dehvered in the commencement of the treatise,) 
since it is the perfection of art to avoid, in the main, defect 
and blemish, while the nature of a subHme genius is to 
exhibit superlative greatness in its productions, but not 
uniformly sustained, it is meet that art should, in all cases, 
be resorted to as an auxihary to nature. For, from such 
union and mutual aUiance, perfection would seem to 
result. 

Thus much, I have been under a necessity of dehvering 
in decision of the questions in debate ; but let every man 
enjoy his own opinion. 



SECTION XXXVII. 

To return. Similes and comparisons * bear a close affinity 
to metaphors, diiffering from them only in one particular 
* * * ^rpj^g remainder of this section is lost.] 

^ ^ ^ 5(C 



* The manner in which similes or comparisons differ from metaphors, 
we cannot know from Longinus, because of the gap which follows 
in the original ; but they differ only in the expression. To say that fine 
eyes are the eyes of a dove, or that cheeks are a bed of spices, 
are metaphors ; which become comparisons, if expressed thus — are as 
the eyes of a dove, or as a bed of spices. These two comparisons are 
taken from the description of the beloved, in the Song of Solomon, 
(ver. 10 — 16.) in which there are more, of great strength and propriety, 
and an uncommon sweetness : 

" My beloved is sweet and ruddy, the chief among ten thousand. 
His head is as the most fine gold ; his locks are bushy, and black as a 
raven. His eyes are as the eyes of a dove, by the rivers of water, 
washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as 
sweet flowers ; his lips hke hlies, dropping sweet-smelling myiTh. His 
hands are as gold-rings, set with the beryl: his belly is as bright 
as ivory, overlaid with sapphire. His legs are as pillars of marble, set 
upon sockets of fine gold. His countenance is as Lebanon, excellent 
I as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet, yea, he is altogether lovely." 



78 



LONGINrS ON THE SUBLIME. 



SECTION XXXVIII. 
^ jj: :ic :f: prpj^^ beginning of this section on hyperboles 
is lost] ^^^^^^-i^^^^^ this hyperbole, 
for instance, is exceeding bad : If you carry not your 
brains in your heels, and tread upon them/^ (Demosthenes 
or Hegesippus, Oration on Halonesus.) It is, therefore, 
needful to know, how far, in each case, the thought can 
properly be carried. For overshoooting the mark often 
neutrahzes the hyperbole ; and expressions of this nature, 
when overstrained, lose their tone, nay, sometimes pro- 
duce effects contrary to those for which they are designed. 
Thus, Isocrates has played the child, from an ambition that 
is un willing to utter any thing without amphfication. For 
the end and design of his Panegyric* is to prove that the 
Athenians had done greater service to the Greeks than the 
Lacedemonians ; but this is the language he uses in the 
very outset : Besides, the power of eloquence is so great, 
as to be able to render great things contemptible, to clothe 
trifling subjects with the attributes of greatness, to impart 
an air of novelty to things old, and to discourse of recent 
transactions, so as to give them the appearance of antiquity. 

And is it thus, then, Isocrates, a man might ask, that you 
are going to change the character of the acts of the Athe- 
nians and Lacedaemonians ? For this encomium of eloquence 
is as much as a notice and hint, thrown out to his hearers, 
to disbeheve what he says. 

Those h}^erboles, then,f would seem to be the best (as I 
have before observed of figures) which have not the appearance 

* " Panegj'ric." This is the most celebrated oration of Isocrates, 
which, after ten, or, as some say, fifteen years' labour spent upon 
it, begins in so indiscreet a manner. Longinus, sect, iii., has censured 
Timseus, for a frigid parallel between the expedition of Alexander and 
Isocrates ; yet Gabriel de Petra, an editor of Longinus, is guilty of the 
same fault, in making even an elephant more expeditious than Isocrates, 
because they breed faster than he wrote. 

t The whole of this remark is curious and refined. It is the 
importance of a passion which qualifies the hyperbole, and makes that 
commendable, when uttered in warmth and vehemence, which, in cool- 
ness and sedateness, would be insupportable. So Cassius speaks 
imadiously of Caesar, in order to raise the indignation of Brutus : — 

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 

Like a Colossus, and we petty men 

Walk under his huge legs, and peep about 

To find oiu*selves dishonourable graves. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUELIME. 



79 



of being h^-perboles at all. And this is the case ^ritli those, 
which are uttered under feehngs excited by some circum- 
stance of magnitude. Thus, Thucydides has appHed one in 
the case of his country-men that perished in Sicily, — 
(Thucyd. vii.) ''The Syracusans, says he, came do^rn 
upon them, and made a slaughter chiefly of those that were 
in the river. The water immediately became turbid. But 
still, though polluted with mud and gore, they drank it ; 
and most of them even fought for a draught of it." The 
circumstances, and the veiy affecting character of the tran- 
saction, make it not incredible that gore and mud were 
drunk, and yet were fought for. 

Herodotus (vii.) has used an hyperbole similarly con- 
cerning those warriors who fell at Thermopylae. '' In this 
place, says he, while defending themselves with their 
swords, that is, such as had sworrls left them, and with 
their hands and teeth, they were buried under the arrows of 
the barbarians.'^ You will say here, what is meant by men 
defending themselves with their teeth against heavy- armed 
troops, and what in the world by being buried under 
arrows ? Notwithstanding, it is rendered credible, on a 
similar principle to that stated above. For the circum- 
stances do not appear to have been called in to aid the 
h3-perbole ; but the hyperbole seems to be naturally pro- 
duced by the transaction. For, as I still continue to insist, 
when the deeds are of a violent kind, and the passions are 
vehemently excited, they qualify and abate all boldness 
of expression. AVhence, also, in comedy, circumstances 
whoUy absm'd and incredible pass off very well, because 
they excite laughter."^ As in this passage : '' He was owner 

So, agam, in return to the swelling arrogance of a bully, 

To whom ? to thee ? what art thou ? have not I 

An arm as big as thine ? a heart as big ? 

Thy words I grant, are bigger : for I wear not 

My dagger in my mouth. Shakspere's Cymheline. 

H>*perboles literally are impossibihties, and, therefore, can only then 
be seasonable or productive of subhmity, when the cu'cumstances may 
be stretched beyond their proper size, that they may appear, without 
fail, important and great. 

* The author has hitherto treated of hyperboles as conducive to 
subhmity, and has nothing to do with humour and mirth, the peculiar 
province of comedy. Here the incidents must be so over-stretched as 
to promote diversion and laughter. Now, what is most absurd and 



80 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



of a piece of ground^ less than a Laconic epistle." For 
laughter also is a passion which is founded in pleasure.* 

But hyperboles are equally applicable to enlarging and 
lessening ; for both alike admit of being carried to further 
degrees. The diasyrm is a sort of further lessening of that 
which is already small and mean.f 



PART V. 



SECTION XXXIX. 

It still remains for us, my honoured friend, to inquire into 
the fifth of those which were laid down to be the causes 
that contribute to the consummation of the subhme.J It is 

incredible, sometimes become the keenest joke. But there is judgment 
even in writing absurdities and incredibilities; otherwise, instead 
of raising the laugh, they sink below it, and give the spleen. Genius 
and discretion are requisite to play the fool with applause. 

* Demetrius Phalereus has commended one of these letters for 
its sententious and expressive conciseness, which has been often quoted 
to illustrate this passage. It is very well worth observation. The 
direction is longer than the letter: — The Lacedemonians to Phihp. 

Dionysius is at Corinth." 

At the time when this was written, Dionysius, who for his tyranny 
had been driven out of Sicily, taught school at Corinth for bread. So 
that it was a hint to Philip not to proceed, as he had begun, to imitate 
his conduct, lest he should be reduced to the same necessitous 
condition. 

f Shakspere has made Richard III. speak a merry diasyrm upon 
himself : — 

I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty, 
To strut before a wanton ambhng nymph ; 
I, that am ciuiail'd of this fair proportion, 
Cheated of feature by dissembhng nature, 
Deform'd, unfinished, sent before my time 
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up ; 
And that, so lamely and unfashionably. 
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them. 

t The author, in the fifth division, treats of composition, or such a 
structure of the words and periods, as conduces most to harmony 
of sound. This subject has been handled with the utmost nicety and 
refinement by the ancient writers, particularly Dionysius of Halicar- 
nassus, and Demetrius Phalereus. The former, in his treatise on 
the structure of words, has recounted the different sorts of style, 
has divided each into the periods of which it is composed, has again 
subdivided those periods into their different members, those members 



LONGINUS OX THE SUBLIME. 



81 



the due structure of Tvords. Haying abeady, in two 
treatises, delivered sufficiently upon this subject, all that I 
could attain to in the matter, I ^ill now add only, in 
comphance with the necessary requirements of my present 
purpose, that harmony is not only a cause of persuasion and 
dehght, inherent in human nature, but a wonderful means 
of imparting majesty to diction, and expressing mental 
affections. For does not the pipe inspire its hearers with 
certain emotions, and, in a manner, transport and fill them 
with ecstasy ; and when it has played off some closing 
notes, in a certain rythm, does it not force the hearer 
to step according to it, and keep time, and to adapt himself 
to the tune, even though he be altogether unyersed in 
music. And, assuredly, the tones of the harp, which sig- 
nify nothing unconnectedly, yet by the changes of sounds, 
by being tempered together, and mutually blended, oft^n 
charm us marvellously, by the concord of sweet sounds, as 
you Yery well know. Yet these are but faint shadows and 
bastard imitations of the powers of persuasion, and not the 
genuine operations of man's distinctive nature. Think we 
not, then, that composition in language, which is a sort of 
harmony of that speech which nature has implanted in man, 
which reaches to the veiy soul, and not the ear alone, which 



into their words, those words into syllables, and has even anatomized 
the very syllables into letters, and made obsers'ations on the different 
natures and sound of the vowels, half-vowels, and mutes. He shows, 
by instances di'awn from Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, &c., with 
what artful management those great authors have sweetened and 
ennobled their compositions, and made their sound to echo to the sense* 
But a style, he says, may be sweet -s^ithout any grandeur, and may be 
grand ^^ithout any sweetness. Thucydides is an example of the latter, 
and Xenophon of the former ; but Herodotus has succeeded in both, 
and written his histoiy in the highest perfection of style. 

An Enghsh reader would be surprised to see ^ith what exactne^ 
they lay down rules for the feet, times, and measures of prose as well as 
of verse. This was not pecuhar to the Greek writers, since Cicero 
himself, in his rhetorical works, abounds in rules of this nature for the 
I.atin tongue. The works of that great orator could not have hved, 
and received such general applause, had they not been laboiu-ed with 
the utmost art ; and, what is really surprising, how careful soever 
his attention was to the length of his syllables, the measure of his 
feet, and the modulation of his words, yet it has not damped the spirit, 
or stiffened the freedom of his thoughts. Any one of his performances, 
on a general suney, appears grand and noble ; on a closer inspection, 
ever\* part shows pecuhar symmetry and grace. 



82 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



suggests such various forms of words, sentiments, things, 
beauty, proportion ; all innate and congenial to us— that iiar- 
mony, which, by blending and diversifying its own sounds, 
insinuates into the souls of others the affection kindled in 
the speaker's breast, and infallibly causes the hearers to 
participate therein, and which, by building up an edifice of 
words, forms into one harmonious whole the grand things 
at its disposal — think we not, I say, that, acting by such 
means as these, composition must charm the soul at the 
same time that it invariably impresses us with ideas of 
grandeur, dignity, sublimity, and whatsoever else is com- 
prehended in it, exercising an absolute and sovereign sway 
overall the powers of the mind But it seems madness to 
make a question of points so fully admitted ; for the evi- 
dence of experience requires no confirmation. 

Subhmely effective and substantially admirable is that 
conception of Demosthenes, (Oration on the Crown,) 
which he subjoins to the decree : — '^This decree caused the 
danger, which then enveloped the city, to pass away like a 
mist."f Yet the harmonious sound of the words comes up 
to the sublimity of the sentiment they convey ; for the whole 
is uttered in dactylic measures ; the finest and most conducive 
to subhmity; for which cause also, they are employed in 
forming heroic verse, the goodliest of all. For do but remove 
the two last words (in the Greek) from their proper place 
to any other you please, or even lop off one syllable only, 
from the end of the last but one, and you will be satisfied 
how much harmonious sound contributes to sublimity. For 
the two last words form a close, having the first foot 
long, and measured by four times, (a spondee ;) but if one 
syllable be taken away, what is left mars the grandeur of 
the period, by dropping a part of it. As, conversely, if you 
lengthen the last word but one, by adding a syllable to the 
end, the signification is the same, but its effect upon 



Tanta oblectatio est in ipsa facultate dicendi, ut nihil hominiim aut 
auribus aut mentibus jucundius percipi possit. Quis enim cantus 
moderata orationis pronunciatione dulcior inveniri potest ? quod carmen 
ai'tificiosa verborum conclusione aptius ? — Cicero de Oratore, 1. ii. 
So Milton: — 

Song charms the sense, but eloquence the soul. 

t ToGto rh (pTjcpicrfxa rhv t6t€ TroAet Trcpicrrdura klv^vvov irap€\6€7v 
e7roi7;cr€y, wcrir^p vecpos. 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



the ear is not the same. For by lengthening the times of 
the two closing words, you dissolve and relax the sublime 
effect of the rapid cadence. 



SECTION XL. 

But, among the methods which conduce most to elevate 
discourse, is that of putting together the parts, even as in 
the members of the body.''' If they are taken apart, each 
single member will have no beauty or grandeur, but when 
skilfully knit together, they produce a perfect and harmo- 
nious whole. So the constituent parts of subhme periods, 
when disjoined and scattered here and there without mutual 
connexion, do at the same time dissipate and fritter away 
their sublimity ; but when embodied in mutual fellowship, 
and moreover held together and encircled by the bond of 
harmony, they fall effectively upon the ear from their mere 
rotundity ; and the sublimities in the several periods may 
be regarded as mutual contributions, which go to make up 
one subhme whole. But I have already said enough to show 
that many historians and poets, ungifted with sublime 
genius, and perhaps devoid of true greatness, though em- 
plo}^ing, for the most part, words that are common and 
vulgar, and impart nothing of ornament, yet only by 
this manner of putting them together, and connecting 
them, have invested their works with a kind of pomp and 
grandeur, and have escaped the imputation of meanness. 
Of this class, among many others, is Philistus ; as also 
Aristophanes, in some passages, and Euripides in very 
many. Thus Hercules, (Eurip. Here. Fur.) after the murder 
of his children, cries, 

I'm full of mis'ries ; there's not room for more. 

i The expression is very vulgar, but it is made sublime by 
i the words being so constructed as to correspond with the 
I thing signified ; and if you were to put them together in 

* So Pope : — 

In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts 
Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts ; 
'Tis not a lip or cheek we beauty call, 
But the joint force and full result of all. — 

Essay on Criticism. 



84 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



another way, it will become apparent to you that Euripides 
is a poet in respect of the structure of his language, more 
than the fineness of his sentiments. So in his description 
of Dirce dragged along by the bull, ^ 

AYhene'er the madd'ning creature rag'd about 
And whirFd his bulk around in awkward circles, 
The dame, the oak, the rock, were dragg'd along. 

The thought itself is noble, but is rendered still grander, 
because the words are put together so as not to move 
rapidly, nor roll, as it were, down a dedivity ; but are 
mutually sustained, and shored up by means of pauses, 
acquiring a sort of staid grandeur, by being thus kept 
apart. 



SECTION XLI. 

But nothing so much lowers the tone of sublimity as an 
over-nice and mincing rythm, such as is formed by pyrrhics, 
trochees, and dichorees, which make a perfect jig of it.f 

=^ Zethus and Amphion tied their mother-in-lav/, Dirce, by the hair 
of her head to a wild bull, which image Euripides has represented in 
this passage. Langbaine observ^es, that there is a fine sculpture on this 
subject, by Taurisius, in the palace of Farnese at Rome, of which 
Baptista de Cavalleriis has given us a print in 1. iii. p. 3. antiq. statua- 
mm urbis Rottkb, 

There is a much greater image than this in the Paradise Lost, b. 
ver. 644, with which this remark of Longinus on the sedate grandeur 
of judicious pauses will exactly square: 

From their foundations loos'ning to and fro, 
They pluck'd the seated hills, with all their load. 
Rocks, waters, woods ; and by the shaggy tops 
Uphfting bore them in their hands. 

So again in book ii. ver. 557. When the fallen spirits are engaged 
in deep and abstruse researches concerning fate, free-will, foreknow- 
ledge, the very structure of the words expresses the intricacy of the 
discourse; and the repetition of some of the words, vaih epithets of slow 
pronunciation, shows the difficulty of making advancements in such 
unfathomable points : 

Others apart sat on a hiU retir'd. 
In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high 
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate ; 
Fix'd fate, free-T^ill, foreknowledge absolute ; 
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost. 

t A pyrrhic is a foot of two short syllables ; a trochee of one long 
and one short ; and a dichoree is a double trochee. 



LONGINL'S ON THE SUBLIME. 



85 



For all compositions Vnose rytlim is thus oTerwrought, are 
manifestly affected, and friyolous, and with all their preten- 
sion, fail to move in the slightest degree, because they are 
of the same texture throughout. And a still worse effect 
is, that as ballads divert the hearers from the matter before 
them, and force attention to themselves, so also, things 
spoken in a rythm overwrought, do not impress the hearers 
with the subject, but the r^-thm, so that sometimes, fore- 
knowing the cadences that should come, they themselves 
beat time to th^ speakers, and, as in a dance, anticipate 
them in the closing measure. 

In Hke manner, periods forced into too narrow a compass, 
and cut up into short words, and words of short syllables, 
or that are bound together in an awkward and clumsy 
manner, as it were with nails, one upon another, are desti- 
tute of grandeur. 



SECTION XLII. 

Moreover, excessive contraction of style is another draw- 
back to sublimity. For it mars the effect of subhmity, 
when the words are forced into too contracted a compass. 
I do not mean here sentences, that demand a proper con- 
ciseness ; but, on the contrary, those that are curtailed and 
minced. For contraction mutilates the sense, but concise- 
ness carries it direct to the mark. And it is manifest, on 
the other hand, that sentences unduly extended, are defi- 
cient in life and energy ; I mean such as are enervated by 
being lengthened out beyond what the occasion requires. 



SECTION XLIII. 

Low and sordid words are serious blemishes to the subhme. 
For instance, Herodotus' s description of the tempest is 
divine, so far as relates to the conceptions, but there are 
some expressions in it which fall below the dignity of the 
matter. This, perhaps, among others :^ '^The sea seethed ;"t 
for the uncouth sound of the words sea seethed, detracts 

* Herod. 1. 7. c. 191. 

t To seethe" I have chosen this word rather than hoil^ T\'hich is 
not a blemished term in om' language : and besides, seeth resembles 

I 



86 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



miicli from tlie grandeur of the conception. Again, he 
says, The yrind flagged, and those who were overtaken 
by the storm, met vrith a disagreeable end."" To flag, is a 
mean and vulgar term ; and disagreeahle, a word inappro- 
priate to a disaster of such magnitude. 

Theopompus, in like manner, after describing magnifi- 
cently the descent of the Persians into Egypt, has exposed 
the whole performance to censure, by the intermixture of 
some low and trivial words. What city or what nation 
was there in all Asia, which did not compliment the king 
with an embassy ? What was there of the productions of 
the earth, or what that is admired or valued among the 
achievements of art, which was not presented to him ? were 
not many and sumptuous carpets, and vestments, purple, 
white, and particoloured, many tents inwraught with gold, 
amply furnished with all necessaries, many embroidered robes 
and sumptuous couches ; and besides, an immense quan- 
tity of chased silver and wrought gold, and cups and goblets, 
some of which you might have seen adorned with precious 
stones, and others embellished with exquisite art and costly 
workmanship ? Add to these, arms unnumbered, Grecian 
and Barbarian, beasts of burden beyond computation, and 
among these, cattle for slaughter ; many bushels of pre- 
serves, many hampers and sacks, and volumes of books, 
and all things besides, that necessity or convenience could 
require ; and so great an abundance of salted flesh, of 
every kind of cattle, as swelled to such prodigious heights, 
that they were supposed by persons who approached them 
from a distance, to be mountains and hillocks josthng 
each other. ^' He falls ofl* from the more elevated to the 
more insignificant, whereas he ought contrariwise to have 
risen progressively in sublimity. And besides, by his 
strange mixture of baskets, and preserves, and sacks, with 
the spendid report of all these preparations, he has set 



more the Greek word (eaaa-ns in the ill sound that it has upon the 
palate, which is the fault that Longinus finds with the word in Hero- 
dotus. Milton has something of the like sort which offends the ear, 
when w^e read in Book i. Azazel, as his right," &c. 

* Theopompus was a Chian and a scholar of Isocrates. His genius 
was too hot and impetuous, which was the occasion of a remark of his 
master Isocrates, that Ephorus always wanted a spur, but Theo- 
pompus a cm'b." 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



87 



before us tlie idea of a sort of kitchen. For as, if any one, 
seeing before him, all those spendid preparations, should 
purposely bring hampers, and sacks, and put them in the 
midst bet^^'een goblets of gold, and vessels set with precious 
stones, and chased silver, and tents all golden, and cups, 
it would be an unseemly sight ; so also, terms such as these, 
introduced inopportunely, are blemishes, and, as it were, 
disgraceful marks branded upon the language. 

But it was open to him to have described in general 
terms both those hills, which, he says, were thrown together; 
and with regard to the other circumstances of the prepara- 
tion, to have changed the form of his language, and said, 
camels and a multitude of beasts of burthen laden vrith 
all supplies necessary for luxuiy, and the dehghts of the 
table or to have said, rather, heaps of all kinds of corn, 
and of all that is excellent, either for the preparation of 
food or for luxury ; or if he must recount every thing so pre- 
cisely, as he preferred to do, he might have said, all the 
delights which purveyors of the table and cooks are con- 
cerned about. 

In the subhme, we ought never to take up with sordid 
and exploded terms, unless reduced to it by the most urgent 
necessity ; but it were meet that our words should be pro- 
portioned to the dignity of our sentiments, and that we 
should imitate the proceeding of nature in the stucture ot 
the human fabric, who has not placed those parts, which 
should be nameless, in open view, nor the excretions from 
the whole body ; but concealed them as much as possible, 
and '^removed their channels (to make use of Xenophon's 
words) to the greatest distance from the eyes," thereby to 
preserve the beauty of the animal entire and unblemished. f 

To pursue this topic further, by a particular recital of 
whatever diminishes and impairs the subhme, would be a 
needless task. I have abeady shown what methods elevate 
and ennoble, and it is obvious that their opposites must 
lower and debase it. 



* Xenoph A7rojj.pr]fj.Qu. 1. 2. p. 45. edit. Oxon. 

t Quae partes autem corporis, ad natui-ae necessitatem datee, adspec- 
I turn essent deformem habiturae ac turpem, eas contexit atque abdidit.— 
1 Cice?^o de Offic. p. 61, 62. Edit. CochmoM, 



88 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



SECTION XLIV. 

In consideration of your desire for useful information, my 
dearest Terentianus, I shall not hesitate to add an eluci- 
dation of that remaining question, which was recently pro- 
posed by a certain philosopher. I wonder, said he, and 
not I alone, but doubtless many others also, how it happens 
that in the age we live in, there are many men eminently 
endowed with talents for persuasion and public speaking, 
remarkable for shrewdness and readiness, and, above all, 
expert in the arts which give grace and sweetness to lan- 
guage ; but that there are now none afc all, or very few, 
who are distinguished for loftiness and grandeur of style. 
So great and universal is the dearth of genuine eloquence 
that prevails in this age. Must we believe at last, that 
there is truth in that oft-repeated observation. That demo- 
cracy is the kindly nurse of sublime genius ; with whose 
strength alone truly powerful orators Sourish, and disap- 
pear as it declines ? For liberty, say they, is able to supply 
nutriment to the lofty conceptions of great minds, and feed 
their aspirations, and at the same time to foster the flame 
of mutual emulation, and stimulate ambition for preemi- 
nence. Nay further, that the mental excellencies of orators 
are whetted continually by reason of the rewards proposed 
in free states ; that they are made, as it were, to give out 
fire by collision, and naturally exhibit the light of hberty 
in their oratorical efforts. But we of the present day, con- 
tinued he, seem to be trained from ou.r childhood to absolute 
slavery, having been all but swathed in its customs and 
institutes, and never allowed to taste of that most copious 
fountain of all that is admirable and attractive in eloquence, 
I mean, Hberty; and hence it is that we turn out to be 
nothing but pompous flatterers."^ This, he said, was the 

* The critic (in the person of the philosopher who speaks here) is 
accounting for the scarcity of sublime writers ; and avers democracy 
to be the nurse of genius, and the greatest encourager of subhmity. 
The fact is evident from the republics of Greece and Rome. In Greece, 
Athens was most democratical, and a state of the greatest hberty. 
And hence it was, that, according to the observation of Paterculus 
(1. i. near the end,) " Eloquence flourished in greater force and plenty 
in that city alone, than in all Greece besides : insomuch that (says he) 
though the bodies of the people were dispersed into other cities, yet 
you would think their genius to have been pent up within the bare 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



89 



cause why we see that all other attainments may be found 
in menials : but never yet a slave become an orator. His 
spirit being effectually broken, the timorous vassal will 
still be uppermost ; the habit of subjection continually 
overawes and beats down his genius. For, according to 
Homer, (Odys. i. ver. 322.) 

Jove fix'd it certain, that whatever day 

Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away. — Pope, 

As then, said he, (if what I have heard deserves credit,) 
the cages, in which what are called pigmies are kept, not 
only prevent the growth of those who are inclosed in them, 
but contract their dimensions by reason of the confinement 
in which their whole bodies are placed ; so slavery of every 
kind, even the mildest, one might declare to be the cage 
and common prison of the mind. 

Now here I rejoined : It is easy and characteristic of 
human nature, to find fault with the existing state of things, 
whatever it be ; but I would have you consider whether, in 
some degree, this corruption of genius is not owing to the 
profound peace which reigns throughout the world ; but 
much more to the well known war which our lusts are 
waging within us universally; and, moreover, to those 
mental foes that have invaded the present age, and waste and 
ravage all before them.^ For avarice (that disease of which 



precincts of Athens." Pindar the Theban, as he afterwards owns, is 
the only exception to this remark. So the city of Rome was not only 
the seat of liberty and empire, but of true wit and exalted genius. The 
Roman power indeed outhved the Roman liberty, but wit and genius 
could not long survive it. What a high value ought we then to set 
upon liberty, since, without it, nothing great or suitable to the dignity 
of human nature can possibly be produced ! Slavery is the fetter of 
the tongue, the chain of the mind, as well as of the body. It embitters 
life, sours and corrupts the passions, damps the towering faculties 
implanted within us, and stifles in the birth the seeds of every thing 
that is amiable, generous, and noble. Reason and freedom are our own, 
and given to continue so. We are to use, but cannot resign them, 
without rebeUing against Him who gave them. The invaders of either 
ought to be resisted by the united force of all men, since they encroach 
on the privileges we receive from Ged, and traverse the designs of 
infinite goodness. 

* Reason in man obscm-ed, or not obey'd. 
Immediately inordinate desires 
And upstart passions catch the government 
From reason, and to servitude reduce 



90 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



the Yv'liole Yvorld is sick beyond a cure,) aided by voluptu- 
ousness, holds us in abject thraldom ; or rather, if I may 
so express it, drowns us body and mind. For the love of 
money is the canker of the soul's greatness ; and the love 
of pleasure corrodes every generous sentiment."^ I have, 
indeed, thought much upon it, but after all judge it impos- 
sible for them that set their hearts upon, or, to speak more 
truly, that deify unbounded riches, to preserve their souls 
from the infection of all those vices which are firmly allied 
to them. For riches that know no bounds and restraint, 
bring with them profuseness, their close-leagued, and as 
they call it, dogging attendant ; and while wealth unbars 
the gates of cities, and opens the doors of houses, profuse- 
ness gets in at the same time, and takes up a joint residence. 
And when they have remained awhile in our principles and 
conduct, they build their nests there (in the language of 
philosophy,) and speedily proceeding to propagate their 
species, they hatch arrogance, pride, and luxmy, no spuri- 
ous brood, but their genuine offspring. If these children 
of wealth be fostered and suffered to reach maturity, they 
quickly engender in our souls those inexorable tyrants, 
insolence, injustice, and impudence. When men are thus 
fallen, what I have mentioned must needs result from their 
depravity. They can no longer lift up their eyes to any 
thing above themselves, nor feel any concern for reputation ; 
but the corruption of every principle must needs be gra- 
dually accomplished by such a series of vices ; and the 
nobler faculties of the soul decay, and wither, and lose all 
the fire of emulation, when men neglect the cultivation of 
their immortal parts, and suffer the mortal and worthless 
to engross all their care and admiration. 

For he that hath received a bribe to pervert judgment, 
is incapable of forming an unbiassed and sound decision in 
matters pertaining to equity and honour. For it must 
needs be, that one corrupted by gifts should be influenced 



[Man till then free. Therefore since he permits 
Within himself unworthy powers to reign 
Over free reason, God, in judgment just, 
Subjects him from vdthout to violent lords. 

Milton^s Paradise Lost, xii. 8. 

Quisnam igitur liber ? Sapiens sibi qui imperiosus. — Horace. 

* See Paul, 1 Tim. \i. 9. 



LOXGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



yi 



by self-interest in judging of wliat is just and honourable. 
Bnd T\-hen the whole tenor of our several lives is guided 
only by corruption, by a desire for the death of others, and 
schemes to creep into their ^lls ; when we are ready to 
barter our hfe for paltry gains, led captive, one and all, 
by the thirst for lucre, can we expect, in such a general 
corruption, so contagious a depravity, that there should be 
found one unbiassed and unperverted judge that can discri- 
minate what is truly great, or will stand the test of time, 
uninfluenced in his decisions by the lust of gain ? But if 
this is the case, perhaps it is better for such as we are, to 
be held in subjection, than to be free ; for, be sure, if such 
rapacious desires, were suffered to prey upon others without 
restraint, hke wild beasts let out of confinement, they 
would set the world on fire with the mischiefs they would 
occasion. Upon the whole, then, I have shown that the 
bane of true genius in the present day, is that dissolution 
of morals, which, with few exceptions, prevails universally 
among men who, in all they do, or undertake, seek only 
applause and self-gratification, without a thought of that 
pubhc utility vdiich cannot be too zealously pursued, or 
too highly valued. 

But it were best to let these matters alone ; and proceed 
to that which follows in connexion with my design; I 
mean the subject of the passions, of which I volunteered to 
treat in a distinct book, since they not only have an impor- 
tant bearing upon oratory in other vrays, but if I am not 
mistaken, contribute much to the sublime."^ 



^ "We come now to the passions," &c. The learned world ought 
certainly to be condoled vrith, on the great loss they have sustained in 
Lcnginus's Treatise on the Passions. The excellence of this on the 
Sublime, makes us regret the more the loss of the other, and inspires 
us with deep resentment of the uTeparable depredations committed on 
learning and the valuable productions of antiquity, by Goths, and 
monks, and time. There, in all probability, we should have beheld 
the secret springs and niOTements of the soul disclosed to view. There 
we should have been taught, if rule and obser^'ation in this case can 
teach, to elevate an audience into joy, or melt them into tears. There 
we should have learned, if ever, to work upon every passion, to put 
every heart, eveiy pidse in emotion. At present we must sit dovv'n 
contented under the loss, and be satisfied with this invaluable piece on 
the subhme, which with much hazard has escaped a A^Teck, and gained 
a port, though not undamaged. Great indeed are the commendations 
which the judicious bestow upon it, but not in the least dispropor- 



LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 



tioned to its merit. . For in it are treasured up tiie laws and precepts 
of fine writing, and a fine taste. Here are the rules which polish 
the writer's invention, and refine the critic's judgment. Here is an 
object proposed at once for our admiration and imitation. 

Dr. Pearce's advice will be a seasonable conclusion — " Read over 
very frequently this golden treatise (which desei-ves not only to be read 
but imitated), that you may hence understand, not only how the best 
authors have vn^-itten, but learn yourself to become an author of the 
first rank. Read it therefore and digest it, then take up your pen in 
the words of Virgil's Nisus — 

Aliqoid jamdudum invadere magnum 
Mens agitat mihi, nec placida contenta quiete est." 

A gen'rous ardour boils v^ithin my breast, 
Eager of action, enemy of re&t.—Dri/den. 



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